The Start of the Housing Correction
I hate to say I told you so…oh wait, I love to say I told you so! The MSM (mainstream media) is finally admitting that the housing bubble has started to deflate.

According to Dataquick, housing prices in Santa Clara County dropped in December (for the first time in years), and sales volume also fell off.

Median sales price was down 2.1% from November, and volume was down 6% from November and 17% from last year.

Of course, since the real estate industry is a bug advertiser for the papers, the Merc article goes through some crazy contortions to paint a brighter picture. They quote three brokers (which is akin to quoting Crazy Eddie marketers on the status of their limited time offers), who say that despite the data, “There’s so much activity now you cannot believe it. It’s like a beehive.”

Then there’s this sentence:

“While there is still demand, prices are dropping somewhat, buyers are more in charge than they have been in years, and a return to single-digit appreciation in home prices could hit the valley within months.”

Let me get this straight…prices have dropped, and you’re saying there’s a chance that the house price appreciation *might* slow down to single digits?

Don’t forget, the very next sentence is: “Single family home prices dropped from November to December in every one of the Bay Area’s nine counties and Santa Cruz.”

I’ll be interested to see what the press says when the market starts really declining…when the papers say that real estate is dead, it will be time to buy, buy, buy!