Orange County Housing Bust?

The Times-Herald reports:

The number of homes sold in Orange County fell last year for the first time since 1990, in the most telling sign to date that the local housing boom is coming to an end.

For those who don't recall, 1990 marked the low point of Orange County's last bear housing market, at least in terms of sale volume.

"That's scary, isn't it?" said Ann Garti, CEO of the Orange County Association of Realtors, which compiled the data cited here. "The numbers that we are dealing with now are substantially larger, which tends to mitigate that downturn."

Indeed, Orange County's housing market just logged its sixth straight year of double-digit price appreciation. The median price of single-family homes sold in 2005 was $317,500, an 11.4 percent increase from $285,000 a year before, according to the Orange County Association of Realtors.

Do you really think Orange County housing prices can go up 10% a year from now to doomsday?