Ok I will try to rebut your claims.
First I don’t see why you think median home price is useless. I don’t know if you expect it to tell you everything or if you think it tells you nothing. As a starting point it is a useful economic indicator. Does it tell you how much to buy or sell a home for? No, but it is the easiest way to look at trends year over year. I know that in my forecasting class we split it up further by attached or unattached residences and then the median price becomes more useful for future predictions.
A 1% drop in price is not a trend. If the prices fall over a few months then you can say you have a trend. Right now it is hard to say the sky is falling after only a one drop.
I don’t know what you mean by the ARM problem. Many people will refinance because they will have equity in their homes and be fine. Right now there is only the PREDICTION that there could be an ARM problem. The people buying in the past year will have problems with ARMS if the market stays the same but that shouldn’t effect the overall market much.
Seeing a 10% drop in listing price doesn’t mean that prices are dropping. If this were the case you would see a 10% drop in median prices, not just 1%. When a house is listed the agent usually adds a few percent over comparable homes in the area. (Sorry not in real estate, don’t know specifics) what is happening is that agents have to list homes at the same price of comparable homes that have sold in the area, not higher.
You have to realize that Alan is talking about the entire SD area. Some areas are still hot, some are cold. I can see prices dropping quickly over the next couple years downtown but rising in HC. Will they balance each other out?
And about saying Alan is lying to the public. Lying is a harsh term to use. They asked his opinion and Alan gave it to them based on his data. I have seen his work and he wouldn’t doctor it.
