It’s going to be a while before a report is going to say there’s clear signs of an economic recovery.
—Colin Bradford, Brookings Institute

As demand firms, and once inventories of houses and a broad range of goods are brought into line with sales, economic activity should begin to stabilize
—Donald Kohn, Federal Reserve Vice Chairman

Whatever damage has been done in California is only going to get worse because there is a glut of homes owned by lenders that aren’t yet on the market. These homes are like a shadow inventory that is likely to drag down prices further when they come onto the market.
—Bruce Norris, a principal with the Norris Group, a Riverside, California-based real estate investment firm

It’s going to be a long grind. Bernanke has a very difficult task in front of him, and I’m not sure if simply lowering mortgage rates from 4.8 percent to 4.5 percent to 4.25 percent will increase the number of people who want to buy houses.
—Dan Gertner, an analyst at New York-based Grant’s Interest Rate Observer

Home sales won’t rebound significantly until the job market stabilizes in early 2010
—Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com

It’s harder for younger first-time homebuyers. The buying is restricted to a somewhat wealthier group.
—John McIlwain, senior resident fellow for housing at the Urban Land Institute in Washington. “

Nobody is really sure what’s going on. We have a bipolar market with short sales and foreclosures on the one hand, and a higher-end market that’s doing relatively well.
—Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist of the California Association of Realtors

New York and the Mid-Atlantic region rises .7%, matching the overall US trend.
—FHFA