patrick.net

Denying those negative numbers is like saying,the value of every house in my neighborhood has gone down except mine!

It's funny how the title is "Bay Area February Home Sales at Five-year High" instead of "SF Bay Area price fell from $500K in 2006 to $325K in 2012".

Sales are flying off the shelves. We have to discount at 40% off retail, but still they are flying! Products are moving fast, better come in a get yours before they are all gone.

Meanwhile there is a traffic jam at the back of the store because 20 rigs full of goods are all trying to unload at one dock. They only open the dock once a day for 10 minutes also. They wouldn't dare want to flood the shelves and let everyone know the real state of the inventory.

Oh, but wait. Now is the best time to buy one of these shinny huts. Never been a better time. Well, there were better times in the past I guess, and chances are there are better times in the future. But just focusing on the now that is now. Not the now that happened already, or the now that is later. The now now is the perfect time to buy. Wait, I mean now is the perfect time. Crap I can't type fast enough. NOW! NOW! NOW! I can't do it. My head will explode.

I think it's bullsh*t. Even Redfin had the decency today to give some...semi real news:

December Numbers Finally Came In. They're Bad
Yikes, the numbers just out for December 2011 show another 1.1% price drop:

Market MoM Price Change YoY Price Change Date of Max Price Change from Max Price Prices Last at
This Level # of Months
of Decrease
Phoenix 0.8% -1.2% Jun-06 -55.2% Mar-00 0
LA -1.1% -5.2% Sep-06 -40.8% Aug-03 5
San Diego -0.7% -5.4% Nov-05 -39.9% Sep-02 5
Bay Area -0.8% -5.4% May-06 -41.1% Dec-00 5
Denver -0.9% -0.4% Aug-06 -11.9% Apr-02 4
DC Area -1.2% -1.6% May-06 -28.4% Apr-04 3
Atlanta -1.8% -12.8% Jul-07 -36.0% Dec-97 5
Chicago -2.0% -6.5% Sep-06 -34.6% Mar-01 4
Boston -1.2% -2.6% Sep-05 -18.6% Feb-03 5
Las Vegas -0.8% -8.8% Aug-06 -61.4% Jan-97 6
New York -1.2% -2.9% Jun-06 -24.4% Dec-03 4
Portland -0.4% -4.0% Jul-07 -28.8% Sep-04 3
Dallas -0.7% -1.3% Jun-07 -10.5% Apr-02 4
Seattle -1.3% -5.6% Jul-07 -31.9% May-04 5
20 City Index -1.1% -4.0% Jul-06 -33.8% Feb-03 4

Well, all anyone ever talks about on this site seems to be the extremely narrow confines of very specific, highly exclusive neighborhoods in Silicon Valley or San Francisco. So if that's all you're interested in, then yeah- I'd suppose you would think that the entire Bay Area is goin' up or doing better than it really is.