a housing bubble needs capitulation for long term capital stability. this is the only way excess inventory can find a balance between the "BID & ASK". informed consumers, leading economists and financial analysts predict unsustainable continuity in price appreciation w/in a period of time w/o a major correction. so the million dollar ques. is has your "LOCAL" area experience such an exuberance??? then you have answered your own ques. by doing your homework, not relying on real estate professionals to market their products.....

Ron Peltier is a paid shill. The reason would be buyers are sitting on the sidelines instead of buying has nothing to do with what the media reports. The fact remains home prices are out of line with incomes by all conventional measures. A lot of consumers don't have the ability to buy anymore without "creative" and a financing and a vast amount of owners can't afford their mortgage payment and only could during the teaser rate period.

Ron Peltier's argument is comparable to saying 9/11 happened because the media reported it or that 3000+ service men and woman have died in Iraq because the media reported it. The reason buyers aren't buying is not due to the medias reporting but rather the fundamentals of home prices and credit markets. The media is just doing their job by reporting what they see. What is unethical is for the NAR to claim they their own holiness and yet continue to put out blatantly over optimistic forecast, incorrect statistics, and continue to call the bottom of the crash for the 100th time. The NAR has seriously done a misdeed to the Realtor profession; they have lost the consumers trust and respect.

I don't follow the Sun Paper much or generaly believe the media. But I do rember an article this spring or early summer on the front of the paper about some poor builder in Essex that had redused his lot from somethind like 239k to 200k and how bad the market was.They neglected to mention he had bought the lot for around 100k 8 months earlier. Instead of mentioning his inflated price they blamed the market.

Bob, did the builder truly do nothing to the lot? Spending money to turn so-called "raw" land into a lot that's permitted for building and ready to go can take a lot of money. (This wasn't my story so I don't know the answer.)

I recently viewed a house listed at $480k in the Towson area. I checked the MD tax and assessment records and it showed that the house was purchased at the end of 2001 for $175k.

I don't need the media to tell me that something is wrong here. The buyer is expecting nearly 275% return in only 7 years? As far as I'm concerned however, they're right on spot with what's going on in the current real estate market.

Let's found a Disgruntled Realtors' Negative Media Coverage Combat Unit...

Jamie, I am a builder and I am verry familiar with the Essex market. Unless he had a verry long sewer and water extension there is verry little he could have done to justify the increase in price.A lot of people price houses and land with a wish price and begin to think that is what they should get. A lot of these houses are still on the market now. Compared to 5 or so years ago the market is just returning to more normal times.

Bob, there's no question that a lot of people priced their homes unrealistically -- and some still are doing so. That's why I've never seen drops in asking price as proof of a terrible market: It could be nothing more than proof that the earlier price was too high.

Drops in price below what people paid before, on the other hand, are more significant, and we're seeing cases of that now. That's creating a variety of ripple-effect pressures, from foreclosures because people in trouble on their loans are having a hard time selling for what they owe to lenders setting more restrictive rules for certain markets.

Some Realtors who have been in the business for years compare this market to the downturn in the early '90s. The one big difference seems to be that the unusually loose lending rules of the boom have put more people in difficult situations now.