As the Real Estate Business Guide writer for the New York Times website at http://realestate.about.com, I do regular article updates with graphs of the two most followed home price indexes, Case-Shiller and OFHEO (Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight). You’ll find 3 month, 13 month and older history for the indexes at that graph link.<p>

In Taos, we tend to become insulated from the rest of the country in many ways. Our little place on the planet is beautiful and quite unique. With a large vacation and resort property influence in our Taos real estate market, we also don’t see the same results from national trends as most urban areas. However, we definitely are seeing a large increase in homes listed inventory, and a sharp decrease in the number of home transactions closing.<p>

What we haven’t seen yet are price drops comparable to other parts of the country. Supporting data is tough, as we have such a diverse market spread over the entire county. However, the general trend seems to be for sellers to let properties languish on the market while waiting for their price. The current MLS shows close to 900 residential properties listed, 24%+ or so more than we historically have averaged in recent years.<p>

I work mostly with buyers, and one reason could be that I’m currently advising sellers to wait to list. I have spoken to several owners recently who are considering listing homes. When we discuss the prices they want, I can’t encourage listing at this time. You can move a home now if one of two situations exist:

1. It’s a truly unique property, or an investment property showing positive cash flows.
2. You price it aggressively.

There are a few fitting the first category, but few sellers who want to price for a reasonable market cycle. If you want a home to sell in six months or less in today’s market, then you’ll need to price below the comparables. Sorry, it’s a fact in most cases. There are many listed properties with sellers willing to sit on them, allow days on market to accumulate, waiting for a bolt of lightning or for the market of 2005 to return. If you want a price at or above the comparables and do not need to sell, I can’t advise listing right now.

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