Do you think that the housing market in the US will ever recover, or are prices just going to?

Well what goes down must go up so eventually housing prices will recover, but it may take several years first.

Yes, I think there will be a slow gradual recovery.

Unemployment wil have to go down and banks will have to feel comfortable making loans again.

For those who are underwater by $50k or more it's probably going to several years for those values to rise.

One of the reasons is they were over priced due to purchasing demand caused by the various creative financing tactics which approved a lot of folks who were not good loan candidates.

I believe both the real estate and the stock market will bounce back.

As a CA Licensed Real Estate Broker I can assure you that the market will recover. We are currently seeing some improvement in my area of So Cal. In the 90's things were pretty bad too...and they improved :).

Heh, as a SoCal homeowner, I'm happy to see Kathy's answer.

And I agree with her. Home prices over the last few decades have definitely seen some peaks and valleys. This current valley just happens to be pretty deep, and the sides pretty steep... but then again, the last peak was also pretty pronounced.

There will always be a demand for real estate as long as humans walk the earth, they need a place to live.

As long as there is a demand for something, there is a market.

What people have to understand that it is not the foreclosures, lack of credit that is driving our market down.

The lack of credit is the lack of buyers seeking credit, not the existence of credit. Why?

Everyone is afraid. If you have fear of something, you will not invest in it.

Our market and economy is driven by spending. That is why Obama is spending like crazy to stimulate the market. But that fear won't subside until we see jobs come back.(Lack of jobs= Business owners "afraid" to spend or expand= lack of credit demand).

Then the demand drops on a national level...Demand drops, supply increases....Prices fall.

Restore jobs, Restore confidence, Fear subsides, market recovers. Period.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.