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Claire

I blogged that prices will fall by 40%-50% in real terms in non-prime areas of the BA.

I'm used Redwood City as my example, where a home I bought in 1996 for $365K peaked at nearly $1.2mm. This despite the fact no improvements had been done, the schools in RWC are a war zone, lots of RWC is very undesirable, and most of those inhabiting "neoprime" RWC are dual-income middle management types.

I think Woodside, Atherton, Belvedere, Hillsborough, etc. are measured on a whole different scale. I think they corrected a while ago (actually I pretty much know this from a good friend who works for the agency that sells that kind of stuff).

I think accessible-prime areas like Palo Alto, Menlo Park, San Anselmo, Saratoga The Marina, etc. will fall much less than 40-50%. Maybe half that. Already the Tam Valley part of Mill Valley is down at least 10%, and I know that most sales going through in the Marina in SF are off by closer to 15% of peak asking.

Randy H - thanks for the reply, we are located in the Mountain View/Los Altos area, and the prices here are depressing. If they don't correct much in the next two years I guess we'll be relocating. Still even a 20% correction would be significant, in that that is effectively everyone's deposit lost on the seller's side - assuming that they actually put 20% down. And for us, by not buying we will not have lost it either.