By Jim Cramer

I have always wanted to have a home in San Francisco, one of my favorite cities in the world. But prices have always been too high. Yesterday, however, we saw some statistics out of San Francisco that make my mouth water. We saw the down 40% from peak-to-trough figure in home prices that says it is time to start finding your dream place in that city. It’s time to explore the Web for sites—I can’t get there yet—and be prepared to do some buying.

Why now?

Because in every town that has hit the down 40%, whether it be the towns in the Inland Empire, like Indio and Palm Desert, or the towns in Florida’s west coast, like Bradenton, even the most inflated areas tend to bottom down 40%. That’s where the buyers overwhelm the foreclosures, and we get prices that are probably going to withstand the test of the cycle.

In 2001, when the dot com bubble frizzled, commercial real estate, which had gotten so out of control, took a nosedive of what was thought to be historic proportions. I heard over and over again that it was finished, kaput.

Five years later it came roaring back.

San Francisco, here I come, at least figuratively, on the Web, as I begin my hunt for the best place to buy in a remarkable city where it seems that things have already hit bottom.

For the best mortgages rates in:

San Francisco County, click here.

San Bernardino County, click here

Orange County, click here

Manatee County, click here

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