“The GSEs have stopped fooling around with borrowers. While the commercial banks are shifting their emphasis to short sales to liquidate their backlog of delinquent loans, the GSEs are ramping up their foreclosures…”

Irvine Housing Blog – Irvine Real Estate and Irvine Homes.

“…sales are probably worse than the Commerce Department’s initial report and predicted further declines in home prices, based on continued weak demand.

“The low level of activity [even with the reported increase] is well below desired absorption levels of builders and will lead to additional pressure on home prices…”

Supply of Homes Set to Grow – WSJ.com.

“What should be noted regarding (USA) / Japan’s experience is that the enthusiasm of market participants, together with the inconsistent projection of fundamentals, contributed to a large degree to maintaining temporarily high asset prices at that time. Such enthusiasm is often called euphoria, excessively optimistic but unfounded expectations for the long-term economic performance, lasting for several years before dissipating.”

“It was thus excessive optimism rather than consistent projection of fundamentals that mainly supported temporarily high asset prices.”

via Japan Iwato and Heisei stock and housing bubbles – How the U.S. is following in the path of Japan. Real estate lost decade, technology stock market bust, quantitative easing, and mania inducing monetary policy. » Dr. Housing Bubble Blog.