Mark Kiesel saw the real estate crash coming.
Kiesel, a managing director at investment firm Pimco, wasn't alone in his 2006 warning of a looming housing market meltdown. But he was among the few who put his money -- in his case, a lot of it -- where his mouth was.
Kiesel and his wife, Amy, sold their Newport Beach house in the summer of 2006 for 20% more than they had paid and moved into an apartment one-fifth the size.
Now, news reports highlight signs of a real estate market bottom. And the Kiesels are still renting.
Just as experts couldn't precisely time the bursting of the housing bubble, no one claims to know exactly when the market will hit its bottom.
There are plenty of pundits weighing in with predictions on when the housing crisis will end, but knowing what to do is tougher than knowing what to say. For those who sold homes during the bubble, actions can be as telling as words.
"We're not there yet," Kiesel said, referring to the bottom in housing prices. "I plan to buy when I can get a place for 50 cents on the dollar" compared with the market peak, he said.
Kiesel turned out to be right about the housing bubble. But three years ago, he didn't think the crash was going to be as prolonged as it has turned out to be. The Kiesels probably will stay in the apartment longer than planned, he said, perhaps even until 2011.
Declining prices are driving home sales up over last year's levels in Southern California and statewide. Nationally, sales are still below year-earlier levels but have been inching up.
Nobel laureate and Princeton University economist Paul Krugman and his economist wife, Robin Wells, bought a $1.7-million Manhattan apartment this month. The New York residence had earlier been listed for close to $2.5 million.
Dean Baker, a Washington economist, also bought recently. Baker began warning of a housing bubble in 2002 and got even more nervous as prices kept rising.
Baker and his wife, Helene Jorgensen -- also an economist -- sold their Washington apartment in 2004 and rented a place a couple of blocks away. Although they got about three times the 1997 purchase price, Baker and Jorgensen might have made more if they had held on a year or two longer.
"I wasn't trying to time the peak," Baker said, because he doesn't think it's possible to perfectly time markets. (After all, he was three to five years off in his crash prediction.)
