Steven Greenhut Sr. editorial writer and columnist The Orange County Register sgreenhut@ocregister.com

After writing an Internet column last month ruminating on the astounding real estate price increases, I received requests from strangers for specific advice about whether or not they should sell their homes in places ranging from Florida to Hawaii.

When people ask mewhether to buy or sell real estate, then I gotta start thinking about moving to a trailer.

One recent newspaper article focused on the real-estate boom in Bakersfield, of all places. Prices there are soaring, with one in four purchases being made by an investor. I suppose those investors are hoping there's always a bigger sucker, willing to pay even more for that house.

Maybe these investors are on to something. Home prices have basically tripled in six years in Orange County, with the median now topping $600,000. Hey, this can go on forever, can't it?

Then again, only a tiny percentage of local residents can now afford the median-priced house. With a 30-year mortgage at 6.25 percent, 20 percent down, the borrower would have to pay about $3,600 a month in principal, interest, taxes and insurance. What kind of income supports that payment? And who has 120 grand lying around? Even with creative financing, that house is costly.

Equity-rich Californians are swarming all over Western housing markets, hoping for another market to double or triple. It's a feeding frenzy in the loneliest towns. Someday, someone is going to wake up and wonder why he has a $300,000 mortgage on a ranch house in Brawley.

Go to www.realtor.com, a useful Web site that gives prices on houses for sale in markets across the nation. Orange County will always cost more than Nowhere, Kansas, at least until the Big One hits. But in small cities near my wife's Appalachian hometown, you can find pages of single family houses for sale under $20,000, with structurally sound houses on the market in the $6,000 range. How's that for perspective? This is a market. Home prices usually go up, and are good investments in the long haul, but they can go down. Plus you've got to feed the beast: pay utilities, make repairs.

Remember columnist Jim Glassman's prediction in 1999 of a 36,000 Dow? Well, keep that in mind as some experts predict median home prices over a million bucks. Esmael Adibi, an economist at Chapman University, is no pessimist, but he sees trouble in the housing market. Current prices, he says, are driven by psychology and easy credit.

Let's say interest rates go up, and those marginal buyers who took out adjustable rate loans can no longer afford the new payments. And the principal comes due on the interest-only loans. We could see a flood of foreclosures, especially among the latest buyers who got in with no money down and have no equity in the property. Affordability levels are so low that it's hard to believe that there will be enough new buyers to ratchet things up to the next level.

So prices stabilize or fall slightly, and then investors start getting nervous. That ranch house in Earlimart doesn't seem like such a good buy any more, and - as is typical these days - the rent payments don't come close to covering the mortgage. The psychology changes, investors unload their properties in droves, the market slips, and then it's lemmings over the cliff. Then this psychology affects the economy. During the last drop in home prices in Southern California, the economy suppressed the values. This time, a drop in values will suppress the economy.

People are spending wildly on remodeling and flat-screen TVs, buoyed by the feeling of wealth they get from soaring home values. What happens when they are feeling low about their declining equity or increasing debt? Others say there remains too little inventory, continuing job growth and the enduring appeal of Southern California. Demand is still greater than supply. No end in sight. Perhaps, but I'm worried.

As the onetime owner of a house in Tennessee that I could not unload, I can attest to the amount of pain that burden can cause in one's finances and even in one's family when one is stuck with an expensive, hard-to-unload asset. I'm not trying to burst anyone's (housing) bubble here. I'm only making the case for a little bit of caution. Then again, I wouldn't bank too much on my real estate advice.