Pegging the start of the housing bust depends on how you're defining it. Home sales began falling in late 2005. Prices took longer to follow suit, peaking in 2007 in most of the Baltimore area.

But for Carroll County, the price impact came a year early.

I'm crunching numbers for the month of June to compare and contrast the counties over the years -- see Anne Arundel here, Baltimore City here and Baltimore County here -- and Carroll County is an interesting case. Even though average prices began falling sooner in that county, they remain higher compared with the late 1990s than some of the other jurisdictions in the region.

Both the average and median sale price in Carroll was about 90 percent higher in June than it was in June 1998. Compare that with Baltimore County's roughly 65 percent increase. (In Baltimore City, where foreclosures and investor activity are both high, the increase in median prices vs. 1998 is the lowest in the region -- 40 percent. But the city's average price increase tops Baltimore County's, which just goes to show that "average" and "typical" aren't always the same thing.)

Carroll County home sales, meanwhile, are down 45 percent since the 2005 peak -- pretty typical for the region -- and remain near recorded lows:

Here's a chart showing the change in prices: