I would buy before the holiday season ends. I don't see prices going up or down too much more this year unless demand porks. The stock market is making good news lately, and my experience living here in SoCal is that almost everything in relation to the "local" economy is influenced heavily by how much consumer spending is going on (shoping at the malls, day-time or late-night entertainment, eating out, etc.). So IF at the end of the holidays comming up buisnesses have a good holdiay-season, and IF the people have the money to spend this holiday-season and they spend it, I think you'll see a bit of a bounce-back in property prices next year.
I work as a drafter for a Landscape Architect here in LA (we do commercial and once in a blue-moon a high-end residential project), so I'm in touch with a bit of what's going on through our clients and consultants. The first half of this year was really ugly for everyone in the industry. Contractors were just not working because nobody had money to build stuff so there was just no work or other jobs to move on to until the old ones found the funding, and us "designers" were just getting by because of some projects that were lingering on from last year. Twords the middle of this year we're seeing contractors getting enough work to get them (those that are left) by, but it's small stuff (the shovel-ready projects our goverment has been behind), and they're itching because most don't have another project lined up to start after they're finished with this one. Us designers though are really in the process of getting thinned out right now. Those getting by until now on long on-going projects earlier this year are finding that there are no new projects to design to replace those that are disapearing and keep the payroll comming in. Some of us designers have been fortunate enough to have landed some new projects, but only in the past couple of months (mostly public-sector stuff, my office has two recreation centers being constructed soon that we landed the landscape design for, and that should get us through this year).
The bottom line currently on the design and construction front here is that we're starting to see the banks being able to put loans out there again, and some previous projects (already delayed 1-2 years) are moving again because of this, but they are still too few and far between to sustain the industry at the current pace. No new housing projects are starting up either (which if they started designing today you would see the first houses popping up in about two years), there's no demand and no banks to get the loans for the developers to build them. If the economy gets worse in the next 6 months (and the banks don't start to put some loans out there) you'll see the crash in the construction industry keeping on, with the design industry finally catching up. However things are looking up from the signs of things with the economy. IF the economy rebounds soon very strongly and quickly though you will soon (in about a year or two after the rebound and demand for housing comes back) see a huge shortage in housing out here in SoCal because there will be this 2-4 year gap in the housing construction industry.
