That is the exact reason why the statistics reported by the media are simply not useful. That is why I have to spend a half hour at listing appointments with condo owners explaining the every single stat they have heard over the past 5 years are essentially meaningless.

Try telling the UTC first time homeowner that bought a condo about a national number or an intersection of union of sets. Try telling the guy that bought a 1 bedroom off of Hyde Park for an investment about it, or the couple who bought a condo in Eastlake. In all of these neighborhoods people are looking at 20% in the BEST case.

The ONLY meaningful statistic for homeowners is what references the type of home the live in, in the very local area that they live in. ANYTHING else will mislead them.

The disservice that has been done over the past several years will indeed come back around in the form of people losing the homes. Plain and simple. I am not justifying the bad decisions they made, please know that. However if one good thing could come out of all this it would be for NAR, CAR, AND SDAR to tell people to turn a deaf ear to national stats and focus on local stats.

There are more then enough resources to find out local stats by housing type and zip code.