Price stickiness in house markets

[8ballrollin]

Overall home sales have fallen a remarkable 33 percent since the summer of 2005. Home prices, on the other hand, continued to rise until 2006 and are now only 5 to 10 percent below where they were in mid-2005, according to various measures.

Robert Glinert, a real estate agent in the Los Angeles area, said he has recently been saying no to almost half the sellers who have asked him to represent them. Their initial asking price is just too unrealistic.

“People say, ‘I don’t care about the market — my home is still worth what I paid for it in 2006,’ ” Mr. Glinert told me. “And I say, ‘To you. Only to you.’ ”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/bu...=1&oref=slogin

At this rate it will take a few more years for prices in bubble markets to realign with historical averages. Obviously, all housing markets are local. For example here in King County with Microsoft and Boeing hiring, prices have not moved down much more than 1% in the last year.

But the national numbers raise an interesting question: Does the average homeowner, in a bubble market, view their house primarily as an investment or shelter?

If you view a house as shelter, and plan to stay there for a long period of time, you can wait out a market correction. You know that in 7-10 years you will at least break even and your home will have provided shelter over that time.

On the other hand, if you see your house primarily as an investment, a rational investor would walk away from the loss now. If they bought at the top of the market there is little chance of breaking even in 3-5 years. Of course walking away is not "free" - there is a cost in terms of credit scores and self esteem. You do have to live somewhere, but some homeowners can rent at a fraction of what their upside-down mortgage is costing them. It will be interesting to see where foreclosure numbers go from here.

Maybe, in the end, the biggest market correction will be one of expectations.