Does this suggest that the market is at or near the bottom?
I believe that it is just the beginning.
Does it mean that it is time for all those hovering ?vulture? bargain hunters to dive in for the best deals and steals before they are "gobbled" up?
Vulture Capitalists play book:
phase 1: widespread change of seller sentiment
come in with some token seed money in cash ($50M in this case) and buy up all of the distressed seller property at, say, 2002 pricing. this huge reduction in pricing will be widely reported, and sellers will come to fear that this is the new normal, and adjust their pricing downward ... other paniced owners will put their property on the market (trying to cut their losses), so even with the price reduction, there will still be a huge unsold inventory.
phase 2: continue to drive prices down
repeat phase 1 until you have reached a pricing level that buyers start to come back into the market and inventory starts to go down (2001 prices? 2000? ....). how many times this can be repeated is dependent on the economy. at that point, bring your big money to the table and buy whatever is left that you want.
phase 3: move on to San Diego and do it again