In came the waves: Yahoo/CNN headline report today: "Where home prices could fall another 50%"

The first waves of selling and price declines these past couple of years were painful..

The final wave, the one that clears through the millions of vacant, foreclosed, overpriced, overbuilt, badly located, for sale and unwanted homes, the one that wipes away the rampant fraud and speculation, the one that gets home prices back to (or below) their historical averages, well that wave is just now coming ashore.

And that's just the US we're talking about - remember we still have a whole world to go.

And you know what, except for arrogant and sadly misinformed idiot ramen-eating realtors on commission who continue to destroy what little credibility they have left (do they have any left?) by calling bottom month after month after month, I think most people now see it coming.

Let the final wave of selling and price reductions now come ashore.

After all, as HP'ers well know, it hath been foretold.

Housing: It'll get worse

Hard hit cities like Sacramento, Phoenix and Las Vegas are set for more steep losses. Some real estate experts are bracing for price drops of as much as 50%.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- With home prices plunging by more than 30% in some markets, bargain-hunters are ready to pounce.

But it may pay for buyers to wait. Many housing experts say that the worst-hit metro areas have even farther to fall, and could see total drops of as much as 50%.

"The housing boom was unprecedented in U.S. history," said Michael Youngblood, a portfolio analyst with FBR Investment Management, "and the correction will be as well."

Many erstwhile bubble cities have sustained particularly brutal hits. The median- price of a home in Sacramento, Calif. was down 35% during the three months ended May 31 compared to the same period last year, according to the real estate web site Trulia.com. In Riverside, Calif. prices fell 29%, while San Diego prices dropped 26%.

Smaller cities in California's Central Valley, such as Stockton (-39%), Modesto (-37%) and Bakersfield (-29%), also recorded steep declines.

Outside California, hard-hit markets include Phoenix (-18.8%), Las Vegas (-22%), West Palm Beach, Fla. (-32%) and Cape Coral, Fla. (-35%).

Youngblood expects that these markets will likely endure total price drops of 50% or more.

What goes up must come down. Vegas, Miami, Phoenix, San Diego and LA get some housing crash love

Funny how the five cities that got mentioned here the most over the past few years are now the five cities with the biggest housing crashes underway. Oh, wait, no, that's really not funny. Interesting, yes. Funny, no.

"Year-round golf and pro athletes" - now THAT was funny.

Here's the blurb on Phoenix from the smartmoney housing crash report headlining yahoo.com right now.

Phoenix

Tumbleweeds aren't exactly taking over the streets of Phoenix, but the city has seen quite an exodus from a couple of years ago when speculators and real estate developers descended on it en masse. More than 67,100 single-family homes were built in Phoenix between 2000 and 2006, according to the Census Bureau, with home values rising by 127%.

Once home values started to unravel, however, speculators started abandoning their rental and investment properties. "People will go to much longer lengths to avoid defaulting on a primary residence than on a secondary home," says Wyss. Now, home values are down 24% from their peak.

Folks, here's what an epic, historic and devastating housing crash looks like. Welcome to Las Vegas Nevada, where gamblers come to get slaughtered

The median price in Vegas has now fallen $62,000 in just the past 12 months - that's over $5,000 a month, or $170 a day. Ouch. You'd have to get killed at the craps tables to lose so much so fast. Or trust a realtor on commission of course. And remember, knife catchers, we're just getting started...

Thanks Doom for the graph and info.

And one more time, this one is just too good:

"Home prices are still going up in Las Vegas. That flies in the face of bubble theorists. There never was a bubble in Las Vegas, and there isn't one in the future."

- Larry Murphy, president of real estate monitoring firm SalesTraq, July 2006

What happens when all the buyers go away, everyone wants to sell, and your town's REIC economy is fake? Well, just go to Vegas to find out

It is fascinating to watch the end of a Ponzi Scheme. Sad, but fascinating.

Hint to anyone trying to sell a home in Vegas - rollback prices. It's no longer 2007. Or 2006. Or 2005. Or 2004. Turn on the way-back machine, and do what you need to do to get out now.

Because it's just gonna get worse.

Oh, one more note. It's nice to see the national media doing the job that the local media is supposed to do but won't, as they're supported by REIC ad dollars, corrupted and dying.

Lady luck turns on Las Vegas' once-hot home market

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - People trying to sell their homes in Las Vegas -- one of America's hottest job and property markets over the past decade -- have seen their luck turn dramatically worse this year.

Away from the flashing lights of the famed Strip, thousands of signs in front of single- and two-story homes illustrate a glut of available properties, many of which are now vacant. Along one stretch of six homes on Edgeworth Place in south Las Vegas, four show "for sale" signs.

After more than half a year on the market, one house is in the process of being sold after the owner dropped the price from $324,000 to $250,000, broker Doug Helen said: "They literally wanted to get rid of it."

Another owner on the street moved back to his native Singapore because he thought his children could get a better education there, his broker, Betty Chan, said.

The situation has also been tough on builders, who continue to expand into the desert around Las Vegas. Robert Toll, chairman of Toll Brothers, recently told analysts the new home market in Las Vegas rated an "F minus minus."

"What are we doing about it? We are out there with the rest of the builders in Vegas praying. There's not much you can do," he said in August. "You can't advertise your way out of that situation. You just have to wait for the market to come back."