Dimon: Housing mess relief a year away

The clean-up of the subprime mortgage loans crisis is almost halfway done, but U.S. home prices likely will continue to decline for at least another year, JPMorgan Chase & Co. chairman and chief executive James Dimon said, according to a MarketWatch report. Asked if the U.S. is in a recession, he said, "it looks to me, what we're in right now, you'd probably call it that," In a speech to the Economic Club of Washington yesterday, Mr. Dimon estimated the financial clean-up is "about 50% done," with hedge funds deleveraging, "monoline" bond insurance companies raising capital, and banks propping up structured investment vehicles that held securities tied to risky subprime loans. On the housing front, Mr. Dimon said U.S. home prices have fallen 10% to 15% in some places, with some estimating they will decline by as much as 35% before stabilizing, perhaps in the first or second quarter of 2009.