It wouldnt be hard to do but it would be impossible to do with any real added accuracy. Months ago, I tried to explain until I was blue in the face how bad the data was. There are unique aspects to and problems with every single data point. Anything you see on housing data is shaky at best. Now that some of you are delving deeper into the data you are beginning to realize the complexity and problems yourselves.
A few months back, Rich and I had an exchange here about this and his fall back was that its the best we got. My reply was thats a cop out and it is not good enough. The only real measure of what is happening on the streets can come from an experienced and ethical RE agent with the interest, time and ability to actually figure out what’s happening. On another thread, I posted examples of what can best be described as “same store home sales”. IMHO, only through examples like this can you truly gauge what is really happening in the market.
Every home is unique in some way so there will always be exceptions but from my chair I see prices back to somewhere around Late 2003/Early 2004 prices.
A thought that just struck me for the first time is that I don’t know how accurate all the charts we use around here to prove the existence of the bubble and project where we will go are. I am certainly not denying the existence of a bubble, I just dont trust any of the data we see. I think there is as an equally good chance that the charts greatly exagerate or underestimate the extent of the bubble as they accurately express it. No one really knows what will happen and to date I have been able to consistently stay 6 months to 1 year ahead of the trends using my gut instinct from watching this thing everyday from the front row. For those that care, I think that prices will go down nominally another 5 to 10% this year. Beyond that, I’m not banking on anything.
