News Reports are NOT helping the situation!

Once again I woke up to the Mercury News headline screaming about home prices plunging this morning. I thought it must be Deja-vu since they ran an article just two weeks ago about prices dropping 41% in February. They couldn't be telling us that prices have plunged again. But alas, I rubbed my eyes, took another look and that is exactly what the headline said.

Well, just like the last article, the Mercury chose to sensationalize their story with a misleading headline. The true story is that due to the price declines that have ALREADY occurred, the county tax roll has declined significantly. No real news there, but home prices plunging sells papers.

We're beginning to see a fragile recovery in the housing market, however, when the Mercury runs irresponsible and misleading headlines like this, buyers that are just starting to poke their heads out of their burrows run for cover.

The real news that the Mercury is not reporting is that prices showed signs of stabilizing in January and February. March's data is not available yet, but early indicators are that the stabilization is continuing.

Those of us that are dealing with already jittery buyers most be able to address their questions and give them an accurate picture of what's going on.

I've put together some graphs that show median price data in a more real time fashion. The Mercury continues to report on what already happened months ago. The graphs below clearly show that the decline began around this time last year as we all know and took a big hit in September though December. The graph also clearly shows that the rate of decline has stabilized and that prices have been flat month on month so far this year.

Looking at data on a month on month basis is more meaningful than year on year. Imagine if we looked at the Dow Jones year on year instead of day on day.

Your Silicon Valley & Sunnyvale Real Estate Professional
Mark Thomason
www.ThomasonTeam.com
408.850.3085