“which implies 2244 homes are currently listed on a $50K range from $450K to $499K — for an average of 45 homes for each $1000 slice. That is a pretty dense listing density for a dead market.”

bsr, This is pretty grey area.The quote you posted doesn’t seem to reflect science but more the are of guestimation and inference. Naturally there is density around the median. I guarantee you there are not 45 houses for each 1000 slice towards the extremes.

Your question about wether or not the “Jumbo” numbers can be monitored is more strait forward but has also many divergent factors. What about general inventory trends for instance? Anyway the problem needs more than just the data on the number of houses in each price range.

I think what you are getting at is this… around the Conforming /jumbo border, with jumbos being as scarce as people to put down a large payment to bring the loan to conforming, the house one can buy(y) is going to go up in quality, size, location, amenities ect. exponentially with the amount (X) in dollars that the price is above conforming. This could become true. It wouldn’t be the first time “high end” got slammed.

I am going to stop this post for now but will continue thinking about the possible implications and watching this thread.