Preview of upcoming Sunday East Bay home tour

I have offered some friends of mine a tour of some Oakland and Berkeley neighborhoods this Sunday, including some open houses, to show them what you can get right now for $500k up to $1M. I thought I would provide a preview of some of the homes on my list here with what my perceptions are before and after. Obviously, I am assuming all of these to be holding open houses on Sunday! Here's what I have on tap so far:




5059 Pierpoint Ave in the Montclair district of the Oakland hills, and not far from Montclair Village, is a contemporary home built in 2007. With 3 beds/3baths, 2800 sq ft, and dramatic loft-like ceilings and spaces, this is a home I am excited to tour.
-redfin
-broker's listing
-google maps






2 Cortez Ct, also in Montclair and set just above the Village about a mile up, is a newly remodeled 3 bed/2 bath 60's rancher set on a large lot of nearly 1/4 acre. With a new master suite addition and new systems, this appears to be a very new-like home with great upgrades.
-redfin
-broker's listing
-google maps






112 Fairmount Ave in the Lake Merritt area of Oakland is a 3 bed/2bath craftsman built in 1924. With some updating, but definitely needing more, this house has great curb appeal and is near the new Whole Foods and Lakeside Park. I am not familiar with this area of Oakland but look forward to seeing it and the house in person.
-redfin
-broker's listing
-google maps

Top economists meet and call for major housing correction and possible Japan-style recession

At this weekend's annual meeting of the American Economic Association (AEA) in New Orleans, a panel of top economists Robert Shiller, Paul Krugman, Larry White and Nouriel Roubini addressed the subprime meltdown. Their consensus calls for property prices to decline 20-30% over the next several years, with 30% most likely, and the odds of a recession at much greater than 50% now. Even the boys at Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are now on the 2008 recession train.

Shiller goes even further and says there is a real possibility of falling into a Japan-style recession where housing prices continue to slump for several years.


These guys are not like the chief monkey economists at the Nat'l Assoc of Realtors and Nat'l Assoc of Home Builders, where the obvious major conflict of interest exists between being a good economist and a good cheerleader. These are top economic prognosticators and professors at Yale, Harvard, etc. Shiller and Roubini were two of the most vocal calling for the subprime and housing fallout several years ago. It is scary to think some of their forecasts could even be conservative. If these guys are correct, 2009 might even be too early to get back into the real estate game, that is if you are fortunate enough to be out of it currently.