Here’s the answer to the above question. Last year there were about 10 houses today there are only 5. Of the 5 houses, 3 are short sales that back up to very busy streets. Truth be told there is only 1 decent house in the bunch. In escrow there are 2 more (one short and one REO). I know tons of people that own these homes and for the most part they are either very well employed, have small mortgages, young kids in the school systems and plenty of savings or empty nesters/retirees with even better jobs and smaller mortgages.

So here’s my follow-up question. How are these houses going to drop another 10% between now and next Summer when no one wants to sell unless they have. Looking at the inventory, not many people have to and the ones that do tend to be in lousy locales. I stand by my prediction that if you can ever buy a really nice house in this category (i.e. 2400 sq ft or more, built after 1990 with 4BR+/3BA+ with a decent yard and a nice quiet location in the low 600’s you better grab it.