This is a molehill. I deal with property data all day long – it’s literally the only thing (productive, anyways) that I do. I think there are a couple areas that peaked in 2004 and some that have peaked later. I’m still seeing a couple of the builders getting away with phase increases in their subdivisions, although those increases are way down from what they were doing a couple years ago. I do not subscribe to the idea that the entire region has already shown a 10% hit and I’d be hard pressed to name more than a dozen neighborhoods that I could show to have done that.
I think the quibbling over when and how much is just that – quibbling. You guys are chasing trees instead of the forest. The big point is that any discernable decrease in a year’s time is an anathema to the Soft Landing viewpoint because we are only in the beginning stanges of this side of the cycle.
Just be patient – the data will demonstrate the trend, whatever that trend is. If the RTM crowd is right the rate of change will demonstrated by so much data that we won’t need to argue its validity; the same holds true for the New Paradigm/Soft Landing crowd. If the data doesn’t conclusively demonstrate the trend then it’s not really a trend, is it?
