Housing Bottoms Out

The housing market may have hit its bottom, to judge from the experience of one of the most hard-hit regions in the country, according to a report Standard & Poor’s published this week.

“We believe things may finally be looking up in that, even in the worst housing markets — such as Southern California, which has experienced an especially poor real estate market since the housing bubble burst in approximately the fourth quarter of 2006 — the slide in home values appears to have bottomed out,” analyst Ian Carroll said in a statement.

Carroll is the author of “How Will The Recovery Play Out For U.S. State And Local Governments? Southern California May Show Us,” released Monday.

According to the report, Southern California has a disproportionately large cohort of homeowners who bought into the market during the bubble years at inflated prices.

“We believe things may finally be looking up in that, even in the worst housing markets, the slide in home values appears to have bottomed out, with some markets experiencing their first bit of good news as recently as March 2010,” the report said.

“Even in the toughest housing markets — a housing recovery still seems far away — we believe that state and local governments have been able to keep their heads above water,” it said.

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