Rising mortgage rates have slowed the housing market across the nation and Southern California.

Sales are down, inventory is rising and many prospective buyers and sellers have a simple question: Will home prices fall?

According to some analysts, the prospect is growing more likely as the slowdown deepens, with some now adjusting their forecasts to call for price declines next year.

Such predictions mark a shift from earlier this year, when there was greater expert agreement that rising mortgage rates would simply slow price appreciation. That is: Prices would keep climbing but less than they had in the last two years.

Many analysts still see that slower-growth scenario as more likely. Few well-known experts — if any — predict price declines anywhere near what happened during the Great Recession.

But the fact some major forecasters now foresee sustained price declines — something that hasn’t happened in more than a decade — underscores just how quickly the housing market is changing.

“It’s noteworthy,” said Jordan Levine, chief economist at the California Assn. of Realtors. “Prices are going to go down.”

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https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-06-30/southern-california-home-prices-decline-recession