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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Les H who wrote (87151)	8/26/2007 7:27:36 PM
From: Tradelite	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

<<Probably will head back down again. Arlington's median/average sales figures are heavily skewed by the multi-million dollar sales which comprise only about 10 percent of the market. July's comps just happened to match up with the big decline in those sales last year. If you compare this July's sales against last June, the median sales figures has declined.>> People in real estate and the appraisal biz would kill for a crystal ball as clear as yours. <<gg>> Figures comparing median sales prices never mean much when you're isolating them to certain months or certain specific areas, because the number of homes involved is never big enough to prove much of anything. I've also never been impressed with reports of "price reductions", because one never knows if a price was realistic to begin with and in line with recent comps when the property was first listed. But to predict actual number of sales going "back down"? The story in the Post clearly reported increased number of sales lately (not just prices), so wouldn't we have to wait and see whether the trend continues? All I know is, a home recently sold (about two months ago) on my street which is almost identical to two others which sold over the past several years; the sales prices on all three were identical, so I guess I'd have to assume some prices are unchanged (at least for certain types of homes in some locations). Frankly, I'm not of the opinion that the market in my town for really good houses on good streets has ever been severely depressed (even back in the early 90s, when inventory levels across the Wash DC area were as high as 12 or 14 months of supply), but that's my observation and experience only, not a prediction of what might happen in the future. Sometimes, it's the sellers who are depressed and suffering, not the prices!!<<GG>>