In the current sluggish (or perhaps worse) U.S. economy, it's becoming known as 'morbid Monday' -- due to the spate of unpleasant predictions publicized on the day.
Oppenheimer analyst Meredith Whitney filled the August 4 installment of the latter by predicting that housing prices will fall more than 30% and banks will remain reluctant to lend until the credit crisis wanes, CNBC reported Monday.
To be sure, the housing sector is a jumbled, uncertain morass, so in order to provide some clarity on the sector (and to either confirm / refute several conventional wisdom points), BloggingStocks Monday corralled economists Peter Dawson and David H. Wang.
Point 1: Those states hardest hit by the housing sector, California, Florida, Nevada, will be the first to recover.
Dawson: Not true. Wang: Most un-true.
"You may find a $300,000 or $350,000 bargain in California or Florida, but understand that five years down the road that home may be roughly the same price in real terms, after inflation," Wang said. "Job creation in an area will determine which way house prices are going in a region in the years ahead, much more than how bad the local housing market is now."



