I agree with you Carolyn. This bubble is bursting because the consumer just can’t qualify for these high loans. I think the County Assessor lists sales prices, and several years ago there was a site advertised on TV, where I snooped around and looked up neighbors’ prices.
I also don’t think that seeing a previous sales price has much to do with what sellers will offer. In a rapidly rising market, it didn’t matter what the previous price was. You pay market price, regardless of what the seller paid! You may not like it, but if the seller can get a 20% markup in 2 months because that’s the market rate, and you don’t offer it, then someone else will offer that price.
I experienced this myself, when we moved here in 1999. I looked at homes which had sold for 20-30% less just a year ago, and thought, “I’m not going to give this seller such a huge profit margin!” So we didn’t buy, and the market kept going up, and eventually we had to accept that sellers were getting rich off us and made an offer. The house we bought was marked up 30% vs. its last price just 2-3 years prior.
There is no turning back. The leading indicators are in place. Even if interest rates had not moved up, these LEADING indicators are showing us that the market is turning:
inventory is up,
DOM is up
building permits are down.
It doesn’t matter that construction hiring is up, median price is up, etc. All of these are LAGGING indicators. Construction hiring is up as builder scramble to finish projects, or they hire to build out their record high permits they got in January. But new permits are down, and construction employment will follow.
