A stalemate, with no winners and losers, is how Bill Wilson describes the housing market.

But there's still some pain out there.

"The market's slapped me on the hand, and now I'll be a little less greedy," said Wilson, a semi-retired Camarillo resident and former motion picture studio executive. He now works part time as an agent at Century 21.

Wilson flips houses as a hobby. He has two that he's been trying to sell since January. He refuses to budge on the price of a Simi Valley town house that's listed at $459,000. Wilson has been able to break even by renting it.

The other property is a Thousand Oaks house he purchased at a foreclosure auction in October. He listed it for $865,000 in January, but cut the price to $789,000 in May, killing his hope of turning a $150,000 profit. Instead, he'll probably make $30,000, a typical return when he flips houses. He's anxious to sell before he loses money on the house.

Wilson's reality meshes with recent economic indicators. On Wednesday, the California Association of Realtors reported Ventura County's median price for existing homes is still far from affordable for many at $692,730 in June. The median was down from $707,690, or 2.1 percent, from the same month a year ago and $699,480, or 1 percent, from May. Essentially, it was flat.

Sales, on the other hand, plunged 22.2 percent compared with June 2006, but jumped 10.1 percent from May. Activity typically picks up month to month from spring to summer.

Judging from the numbers, buyers and sellers aren't giving up much, even though there are signs of market distress.

Foreclosures in the county shot up 754.1 percent to 316 in the second quarter compared with a year ago, DataQuick Information Systems reported Tuesday. Default notices, the first step in the foreclosure process, spiked 134.3 percent to 1,059 over the same span.

Economists and industry experts are predicting the market won't rebound until 2008 or 2009.

Still, Wilson, who describes himself as "bullish and optimistic," is far from losing faith.

He expects the market to turn around in the next four to six months and wants to scoop up as many bargains as possible.

"I wish I had more money," he said. "I would love to swoop up all the deals right now."

While homeowners watch prices in their neighborhoods decline, the median price has stayed fairly static because higher-end housing is strong and supports the market's overall value, even as demand and prices for low-end homes slip.

'A renter's market'

A far better indicator of a market slump is sales activity, said Dave Lake, an IT analyst from Westlake Village.

Lake sold his Camarillo home in 2004, and then sold an investment property in Los Angeles. He plans to rent until the market corrects to a sustainable level.

"I call it a renter's market," Lake said. "The money you're throwing away by renting is substantially less than what you would be throwing away with the current depreciation."

Lake says he spends about $35,000 a year to rent an $800,000 house in Westlake Village. If he owned it, Lake said, he would have a hefty monthly mortgage, plus annual expenses that would run about $15,000 for taxes and maintenance. There's also a chance the house could depreciate.

"Prices have stickiness on the way down, and nothing sells," Lake said. "There's a standoff that lasts for a year, until people have to move."

He expects the next three or four years to bring more bad news for the Conejo Valley, with possible layoffs at Countrywide Financial Corp. and Amgen Inc.

"We're seeing this huge foreclosure tsunami that's going to continue for three to four years," Lake said. "Foreclosures probably won't peak until 2009 or later. The crash will continue for a few more years. Demand is going to be suppressed for the next five to 10 years."

Statewide, sales dropped 24.7 percent in June from the same month a year ago, while the median continues to slowly rise, according to California Association of Realtors. The median price for existing homes was $594,260 in June, up 3.2 percent from $575,850 in June 2006 and 0.2 percent from $592,780 in May. The median is the midpoint, where half the sales are higher and half are less.

Housing sales remain rocky as buyers play "wait-and-see" in response to recent upswings in foreclosures and higher inventories of homes for sale, CAR President Colleen Badagliacco said in a statement.

Hard time finding buyers

Eliseo Cisneros of Oxnard, a mortgage planner with America's Lending Partners, says tightening mortgage underwriting standards are making it more difficult to qualify first-time home buyers.

"In some ways, it's good, so we won't be experiencing the foreclosures like we are now," Cisneros said. "But then it's a bad thing for business, because it makes it tough for any loan originator or real estate agent to conduct business."

Out of the 25 leads Cisneros generated in June, only two qualified for financing. Cisneros sees many people who need to sell growing more desperate and lowering their prices.

For example, he's helping an 81-year-old woman who is selling her three-bedroom, one-bathroom home on Doris Avenue in Oxnard. She listed her home for $490,000 about four months ago, then recently reduced it to $425,000. She knows it's a bad time to sell but needs to for health reasons, Cisneros said.

"She's anxious and frustrated, and is very aware that the market is slow," he said.

CAR's unsold inventory index for existing single-family detached homes in California in June was 10.1 months, compared with 6.1 months in June 2006. The index indicates the number of months it would take to deplete the supply of homes on the market at the current sales rate.

In contrast, Ventura County's unsold inventory index was 3.1 months in June. In Ventura County, homes sold in June were on the market for 58 days compared with 39.1 days a year ago, according to CAR.

Leslie Appleton-Young, CAR's vice president and chief economist, said she expects to see further softness in prices in coming months because of the high volume of inventory.

"The real sticking point right now is the trade-up buyer is having a hard time finding qualified buyers to buy their homes," said Robert Kleinhenz, deputy chief economist at CAR.

On the Net: www.car.org