If the housing boom isn’t over, and by boom I mean prices in excess of value, and there is further to go up, doesn’t that mean it will be that much further to drop and it will take that much longer to get the market back to true value?

If speculators are still hopeful, can we have reached bottom? In other words, doesn’t the market have to flush them out to start back up for real?

I believe the likely scenario is a slow spiral with plenty of hiccups along the way.