redfisher said:
Cork, I would think that by definition we are not near the bottom...prices dropped significantly in both the timeframes you speak and still no activity...therefore they must continue to drop until volume levels increase...that plus interest rate cuts in the 1st qtr 07-3rd qtr 07 might provide some catalyst to stabilize prices
Redfisher, My use of the bottom was colloquial. Will rephrase. We were riding high and the rug got pulled out.
Prices have not dropped.
List Prices have dropped. When I saw homes sell for $640K in May 2004 , resell for $850 in Sept 2004 and then relist for $1.2 million in January 2005, I laughed. If someone paid that ridiculous price, they made the seller's pipe dream come true. We saw those ridiculous list prices start to drop when people refused to pay it during the summer of 2005. Then when the more realistically priced homes started selling, of course they paid less than the people who made poor decisions.
The facts are that the average sold price in Jan 2006 is significantly higher than the average sold price in Jan 2005. When people stopped buying, the number of sold transactions decreased for DSF's by 75% yet the total sales dollars only decreased by 60% which means the average price of sold homes in 2006 were higher, 64% higher! The same is true for condos and land on 30A over the timeframe but to a lesser extent.
This area is now being bought by the wealthy who can afford to pay whatever they want. There are plenty of them out there. Will the number of transactions decrease again
but I guess that could be expected as the pool of eligible buyers decrease. My personal belief is that if I sit tight for a while, these wealthy buyers will bring the values of my property up even more than it is already.
