Jamie,

I have to disagree with your stats. Go here to see all Feb year over year MRIS data.
http://bubblemore.blogspot.com/2008/03/february-2008-housing-data_12.html

Baltimore City and the 5 counties median is down (8.1%) YOY, average is down (7.2%) YOY, sales are down (33.4%), inventory is up 24.3%, and pending sales are down (25.9%).

Also Feb numbers mean nothing and neither do Jan numbers..its all about March. Historically Feb sales are always higher than Jan sales (save 2003) and this is why you need to compare year over year and not monthly changes.

Kevin, I'm befuzzled -- your numbers aren't matching what I see on MRIS's site. Did you calculate them differently? The February 2008 median price for the metro area -- city and five counties -- was $262,500, according to MRIS, vs. $269,350 in Feb. 2007. That's down 2.5 percent. The averages are different, too.

As always, I'm using this link -- www.mris.com/reports/stats/monthly_reti.cfm -- and choosing "Baltimore Area" in the drop-down menu.

March is critically important, true, but I don't think February means nothing. We wouldn't report on the numbers at all, if so. The main thing is that one month does not a trend make, as one of the economists in the story points out.

When I read your post, I didn't have Baltimore Metro calculated so I quickly put it together, but I inadvertently calculated average on average instead of doing a weight average of price vs sales; I’ve correct the problem. The link above is updated for more information from MRIS. Average price is down -4.4%, sales are down -33.4%, inventory is up 24.3% and pending sales are down -25.9%. Overall this is very grim compared to historical stats. A month over month up swing from Jan to Feb was entirely expected by even the most bearish of bears. I’d expect the same for March compared to February because as you noted seasonality. Overall sales, inventory, and pending sales are all lower than 1999 figures…this is the 800 lb gorilla.

Indeed, and those are the figures I focused on when I reported on the MRIS numbers earlier in the month, when they came out. Still, I thought it worthwhile this time to see how the change in January-to-February sales compared with the typical. (It's usually an uptick but not always.) The critical thing here is comparing it to past Jan-Feb periods, not just saying "oh look, an increase!"

As my story also notes (though not the blog post), the metro area's year-over-year decrease in sales is steeper than the nation's as a whole, while the nation's price decline is steeper than ours.

In the end, the economists I talked to aren't arguing that all is well now -- far from it. But they're relieved to see the falling prices, and the early signs of buying, because they think that's the way the housing market will get back to normal.

The prices were too high, and had to go down. There seemed to have been a widespread belief that they can grow infinitely, and that it is good. Math can be so discouraging to those who borrow too much money for housing, and then spend it on consumer goods.