California’s central valley: a radioactive real estate hotspot [The Real Estate Economy]

I just noticed that the daily paper in Bakersfield slapped me on the wrist for highlighting Califonia’s central valley as a region due for one of the sharpest, short-term corrections in the country: “City called real estate risk.”
They’re referring to the story headlined “Where not to buy (at least for the next year or so)” in our November issue. I zeroed in on the central valley because a handful of its cities crowd the top of a ranking done for us by Economy.com that projects percentage declines in median house prices over the next year. The same names show up at the top of Global Insight’s Over-Valuation Index. (Bakersfield is respectively 7 and 16 on the lists, which each include more than 300 metros).
Next to rust-belt metros in the Midwest, this is the last place you’d expect to find a housing bubble. But many watched in amazement as house prices […]

Original post by noemail@noemail.org (noemail@noemail.org (Paul Kaihla) and software by Elliott Back