Schahrzad Berkland, REALTOR, Fidelity Pacific Real Estate (858)-486-4584
and Real Estate Analyst for The Berkland Group
Frustrated by poor economics reports, and myths about housing cycles, Ms. Berkland founded The Berkland Group, a consulting firm that provides straight talk on the southern California housing market and economy. She was advisor to the San Diego Reinvestment Task Force Foreclosure Subcommittee and consults on real estate matters.
She has exposed the median, average, and $/sq ft measurements as useless, explained why rising Notices of Default are not leading to price drops, and written extensively about the exposure of prime borrowers to the foreclosure crisis.
The Berklands sold their new custom home in late 2005, when first learning of the housing bubble, and are now happy renters. Schahrzad does not get caught up in the manias around her. She sat out the NADSAQ bubble, and sees the same bubble characteristics in today's frenzied leverage- and LBO-driven stock market.
Ms. Berkland holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and an MBA from Arizona State University West. She was promoted to Quality Assurance Manager for the software company GTX in Phoenix, AZ just one year out of college. In recent years, she consulted for SOTA Environmental Technology in marketing, sales, and research. Mostly, she's been a full-time mom most of the last 15 years.
Her husband Gene splits his week between his engineering design business, and an environmental consulting firm in Irvine. The Berklands rent a house in Poway, CA with their 3 children.
Contributors
Lee Williams
A California native, Lee has seen housing booms and busts for 4 decades. He sold his real estate holdings, except for his primary residence in northern California, which has been paid for since 1999.
Lee holds degrees in both Engineering and Mathematics, and works in the energy industry.
Lee has given presentations predicting the housing decline and sub-prime debacle, and has been a contributor to the Housing Bubble Internet community for the past two years. Based on his research, the current housing decline in California should bottom out in 2011-2013. This would be a “peak-to-trough” time of 6-8 years. The previous housing decline in California took 6+ years to bottom out (1990-1996). While the previous price decline averaged ~17%, this decline will likely be considerably worse, on the order of 30%.
