Real estate microcosms

I did attend that CRS conference in San Francisco last week and enjoyed it very much. The stories from the agents in attendance were very interesting. Conventional wisdom has always been that real estate is local and our current economic climate has really underlined that. There were agents at the convention from markets where median prices were down over 50% and whose practices consisted almost entirely of short sales and foreclosures. Other agents described markets that had small increases in median price, perhaps lower than in previous years, but were otherwise untouched. Many agents envied our Seattle market statistics - down about 10% overall with about 6 months of inventory available. Of course, as new statistics come in each month, we get a new sense of how 2009 is shaping up. Still expecting a wild ride...