Chip Case, economist from Wellesley University and a creator of the Case-Shiller Housing Index:
“I think you’re going to see things turn this year. In the housing market. Commercial real estate is going to dominate the press in the next few months. [Because of banking issues.] But the story’s in residential … “
Case noted, wryly that his long-time Red Sox fandom proves he’s an optimist.
“Florida’s not going to die. Arizona is sick but it’s not gonna die.” His point is that people still want to live in warm areas.
“Florida and California alone are one-third of the [housing and real estate] value in the United States. California alone is a quarter of it.”
(This is at a conference on “The Next City” in Cambridge, Mass., sponsored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the Nieman Foundation and Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.)