Billionaire Warren Buffett said the U.S. residential real estate slump will end by about 2011, predicting that’s how long it will take demand for homes to catch up with the supply.

“Within a year or so, residential housing problems should largely be behind us,” Buffett wrote Feb. 27 in his annual letter to shareholders of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. “Prices will remain far below ‘bubble’ levels, of course, but for every seller or lender hurt by this there will be a buyer who benefits.”

We see this trend happening already in Manhattan whereby the best properties at the ‘2009 prices’ are slowly but surely dissapearing, leaving very few good options behind. With unemployment of the wealthy around 3-4%, and the Manhattan market catering to predominantly wealthy people, the absorption rate of the best could happen quicker here than other parts of the country.

What do you think?