“There’s a lot of support for the idea that the mix of homes sold is skewing the median. The problem is noone (at least to my knowledge) has yet presented data showing this to be the case. It seems to be all anecdotal.”
Jim the realtor published in his website data from the zips he track
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Number of Sales, First Half of 2006
Number of Closed Sales, January 1 – June 30
2004 2005 2006 % chg. from 2004
$400K or less 324 61 63 -81%
$400K – $700K 1,065 1,185 859 -19%
$700K – $1M 332 396 318 -4%
$1M+ 97 115 84 -13%
Totals 1,818 1,757 1,324 -27%
(He removed 23 closings from 2006 of new homes from tract builders that wouldn’t have listed in the MLS in 2004)
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in these zip codes the sales of houses less than $700K have dropped by 34% while sales above $700K only dropped 6%. what i read from this is tht rich people are still being able to pay but the entry market is in fact suffering. i added the first two price ranges together because i think that even in 2005 the less than $400 were actually in the high 400s so they might be the only houses that have seen a litte appreciation – there might be fewer buyers but still this prices is attractive to generate a small price bid.
