SAN DIEGO - The bottom may be coming for the falling San Diego County housing market, which is hovering just above the low point of the early 1990s housing recession, the North County Times reported today. And the Union- Tribune says foreclosures in San Diego County are up 600 percent this year.

At the height of the recent housing boom, about 4 percent of San Diego County homes were being sold annually. Today, a little more than 2 percent are changing hands.

Analysts quoted by the North County paper say sales levels are about to reach the bottom in the current downtown. But the inventory of unsold homes is much higher than last year, and analysts warn that up to four more years of flat or declining home values could be in store.

"It's not a full-on buyer's market because a lot of sellers are still holding onto their prices, or coming down only a little bit," Carlsbad real estate agent Dennis Smith told the newspaper.

After peaking at $604,250 in 2005, median San Diego County-wide housing prices declined to $601,760 in 2006, according to the California Association of Realtors.

North County home prices are holding strong at an average $635,000 price in April.

But still on the horizon is a possible flood of foreclosures on sub- prime loans. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported today that 10 percent of the 700,000-to-750,000 mortgages in San Diego County are of the sub-prime variety.

And nearly 13 percent of those sub-prime notes are at least 60 days in arrears, the Union-Tribune reported. Already, foreclosures this year are up 600 percent above last year's levels.

Data-Quick, a San Diego-based housing analysis firm, told the Union- Tribune that 1,707 houses and condos were foreclosed during the first four months of 2007, compared to just 238 in the first four months of 2006.

Typically, the rate of home sales fall first and fast following booms, with prices drift down slowly, the Times reported.

In April, San Diego County's supply of houses reached a demand level of ten months worth of sales, a dramatic increase in inventory from the record- low, one-month supply posted in March 2004.

Last decade's recession was worse. The county's unsold inventory reached a whopping 23 months in February 1992.

Economists and real estate analysts agree that a corrective down-cycle is under way, but the million-dollar question, analysts said, is "how long it will last?"