I thought prices rose slower in 2005, peaked in Aug 2005, and have gone down slowly since then. I’d say about 5-10% down from August 2005. That would explain why prices are back to 2004 levels – 2005 was not a year of big gains.

I had 2 offers on my house in Nov and Dec 2005, and both offers were 5% below an Aug 2005 comp. There were 2 houses for sale at that time, that were my competition: one was just withdrawn (2 expired listing, this 3rd is withdrawn), and the other is still listed after 6 months without reductions. So I experienced the 5% drop firsthand. If the market in my area of Poway dropped 5% between Aug 2005 and Nov/Dec 2005, I can only guess it dropped another 5% in the following 4 months.

Also, each area is unique. Some areas of SD are still going up, some are going down faster.

I’m glad we have a realtor on this site now, since the Dataquick and NAR data is 2 months lagging, and doesn’t tell us the story behind the numbers.