Keep Your Head Low, But Keep Looking Ahead

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LOS ANGELES-The more than 400 attendees who showed up for a real estate forecast on a rainy Friday morning in Downtown L.A. represented either a sign of great eagerness about 2010 or proof that a lot of people had nothing better to do. So said forecaster and moderator Christopher Thornberg, founding principal of Beacon Economics, who presided over the Institute of Real Estate Management’s 16th Annual Real Estate Forecast breakfast at the Omni Hotel on Friday.

Thornberg, one of the earliest predictors of the housing market crash, explained that there are definitely some good signs out there. “If you look at an economy a certain way, there are some good things happening.” But, he also noted that if you look at the economy a slightly different way, things are bad. It’s similar to those black-and-white psychological photos, he said, “where you look at it one way and it is a light at the end of the tunnel, but if you look at it another way, it could be a train headed straight for you.”