That would be a change in mix issue, but I’m just referencing what the NWMLS reports.

But let’s see. That must mean that that King County is down more than what the NMWLS stats indicate. But the NWMLS stats indicate King County is down more than Case Shiller. But Case Shiller includes three counties, the two additional ones being down more than King, per the NWMLS.

Which basically gets back to my prior point. If you want to know what your house did, you can’t rely on any of this. You need neighborhood stats of comparable properties.

When working with buyers, if I find that the home they want happens to be overpriced, I go to bat for them and bring data. Some sellers respond, some don’t. Whether a seller will respond to information has little to do with the price of the neighborhood. They are either open to facts, or they aren’t.

I should probably add that any home 5% overpriced or more is probably the home of a seller that isn’t interested in facts.

I guess you could say there are also two types of sellers!

Among those that are open to multiple areas, they generally start the search in the preferred area. If they can afford something they like, the search is over. If they aren’t happy with it, they become open to another area.

One of my clients recently wanted a townhome in Queen Anne, but realized they probably would settle for Capitol Hill. We eliminated Queen Anne almost immediately, and Capitol Hill left them financially stretched to find something they liked.

We expanded the search to Ballard, Fremont, and Green Lake. This buyer was looking for convenience to DT, and we found Fremont to offer enough attractive inventory that met their needs. So, Fremont was the solution.

Incidentally, at the time, Capitol Hill was cutting prices, and Fremont wasn’t. Fremont sales were very slow – we brought data along with our offer to show that Fremont was overpriced vs. the other areas we were looking at, and ended up getting a huge concession. The herd mentality pricing in Fremont started to shift downward in response to the fact that other neighborhoods had become more competitive.

I guess the moral to that story is that when an area becomes overpriced, it doesn’t mean that you can’t buy a home in the area for the market price. There are always sellers that are motivated, that will respond to good analysis.

If you still want to think any area went up, while others went down…no data will be of use to you. NO area is up.

For December, 6 of 30 NWMLS areas for King County had higher means than the prior year, but the overall mean was down roughly 8%. 8 of the 30 medians were higher, but I noticed one down about 20%, while overall it was down maybe 7%. Given that, what use is the county wide data?

Premium factors, as Greg pointed out with the view premium, are often hit the hardest in a weak market. Y neighborhood will eventually go down also, but the premium neighborhoods will often go down first.

Someone buying where there are no views, for example, may not be looking in the view areas. But once a view premium is knocked down by $400,000, the neighborhood without the view will likewise go down…but much later.

Market prices are all like a big puzzle and are inter-related. They do not change simultaneeously, but in domino fashion. Even if you know for sure that you want to live in this “trapezoid”, you have to follow the prices in a much broader area to see change coming.

I like the word “bamboozled”, because the person who gets excited is complicit in the end result…moreso than if they were “swindled”

The biggest problem I am seeing with new construction at present, is first time buyers want an agent the day after it is too late to get one.

Of course people will look closer into the areas that interest them before purchasing. The countywide or three county data obviously isn’t meant to price out particular neighborhoods. The neighborhoods are all related though. The countywide data can be used to tell you that overall prices are higher than they should be, or that prices are indeed dropping. Unless there is some mitigating factor, you would expect prices in most neighborhoods to drop at about the same time, because Queen Anne would drag down Magnolia or vice versa.