A report from the Los Angeles Times in California. "Southern California home sales plunged 12% in November from a year earlier, while prices rose at the slowest pace in three years amid a broad cooling in the housing market."

"The median — the point at which half the homes sold for more and half for less — slipped 0.4% compared with October and is now $14,250 below the all-time high reached in June. It’s not unusual for the median to peak in summer or slip from one month to the next. But the sales decline, combined with a plethora of other data, confirms that the housing market has slowed dramatically in recent months."

"Not only were there more homes on the market last month than a year earlier, but sellers also increasingly trimmed their asking prices to close a deal."

"Economists generally do not expect a crash like the one that happened last decade when the housing bubble popped. But they disagree on what exactly comes next."

"Some predict that home price appreciation will slow, but that unless there’s a recession, prices will not fall. Others think prices could come down slightly. They argue that even with continued economic growth, home values have gotten too far out of whack when compared with incomes."

"In the small, expensive market of Ventura County, the median has already come down slightly. Last month, the median for new and resale houses and condos was $575,000, down 0.9% from a year earlier. It was the first time that figure fell, year-over-year, in a Southern California county since 2012."

"Depending on how the data is looked at, more declines are evident. When looking only at sales of previously owned single-family homes, the median price fell 0.7% from a year earlier in Orange County and 0.8% in Ventura County."

"The last time that happened was December 2014. At the time, the housing market had cooled following a surge in mortgage rates and a run of double-digit price appreciation. But home values didn’t tank then. Instead, the Case-Shiller index showed, price appreciation slowed — and eventually accelerated."

The Orange County Register. "The Southern California housing market is ending 2018 with the lowest number of home sales in four years and its second-lowest home sales tally in seven years, CoreLogic housing figures show."

"'Higher mortgage rates worsened affordability constraints this year, and in recent months, stock market volatility could have contributed to the high-end pullback,'said CoreLogic Analyst Andrew LePage. 'Market corrections can spook high-end buyers and leave some with inadequate funds to cover down payment and closings costs."

"Sales have seen year-over-year declines 11 times in the past 13 months. Sales were down in all six counties, ranging from sales drops of 6.4 percent in Riverside County to 15.8 percent in Los Angeles County."

From 10 News San Diego. "In terms of year-over-year sales in San Diego, CoreLogic’s latest numbers show 2,936 homes sold in November 2018 -- nearly 11 percent lower than the number of home sales at the same time frame in 2017 when 3,291 homes were sold. From October 2018 to November 2018, the number of homes sold in San Diego fell 7.1 percent, from 3,159 to 2,936."

"CoreLogic analyst Andrew LePage said, 'Last month’s 12 percent year-over-year drop in home sales marked the second largest decline in more than four years, behind a nearly 18 percent decrease this September. November’s slowdown affected all major price categories, including a nearly 10 percent annual drop in $1 million-plus sales, which have fallen on a year-over-year basis for three consecutive months.'"

The San Francisco Business Journal. "The Bay Area’s housing market remains chock full of contradictions. Experts say the market is softening, but San Francisco housing prices remain higher than ever. The days of multiple bids and significant overbids seem to be finished unless the property is truly a winner, with views, a desirable location and a top-notch condition, said Gregg Lynn, an agent with Sotheby’s International Realty."

"'Buyers do expect that our market has stopped growing at 5 to 10 percent a year and that sellers are more flexible than they were in years past,' he said."

"The Greater Bay Area’s median home price appreciation slowed to 3 percent to $899,000 in November compared with the same month in 2017 — the least growth since August 2016, according to Selma Hepp, chief economist at brokerage firm Compass. Inventory and price reductions are on the rise."