Charles
I would not agree that the luxury market on the Peninsula is crashing.
The folks that buy $3M or $4M homes on the Peninsula are NOT taking loans out for a big percentage of the purchase price. In my opinion, the statistics on jumbo delinquencies have little or nothing to do with falling values. In my opinion, the 40% DROP in stock valuations is the main cause of luxury home prices falling.
You may be right and a BIG CRASH may be coming but I do not think so.
Absent a COMPLETE economic melt-down, values on The Peninsula will continue down slightly.
Please consider that many people in Portola Valley Woodside Atherton have owned their homes for 15, 20, 25 years. These folks have plenty of EQUITY. They are not in danger of losing their homes. Accordingly, you will not see a panic wave of selling due to imminent foreclosure.
It is true sales activity is these expensive areas have slowed WAY DOWN.
Also you need to be careful with looking at average or median prices in these areas - if you only have 20 sales in a year say in Portola Valley, a few low priced properties can push the average and median price way down.
If you believe in the economic strenght and overall appeal of our area (people from all over the world want to come here - highly educated motivated driven folks) - then you might conclude property values will not collaspe.
Let's touch base in 5 years and see what happened! :-)
Use the current slow market as a buying opportunity, but you will not be able to buy property in desirable areas for 60 cents on the dollar - maybe 85 to 90 cents on the dollar but not 60 cents.

We are starting to see signs of weakness, and if any of the listing interviews we have had this year in Los Altos, Palo Alto, Portola Valley, and surrounding areas are any indicator, we believe we are going to see much more pressure on prices in the Luxury markets. Many of the prospective sellers have jumbo jumbo loans which are resetting in the next few years, and some will be unable to make payments with the rates available today. As for the Luxury market in general, we are definitely seeing much less activity on the 3 million plus properties but the more affordable homes in each of these cities is still moving and if attractively priced with multiple offers. Hope this is of help. Good Luck,

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