Here's what the people trying to sell homes in the Baltimore region were asking in the month of November the past few years, and how that compared with what buyers paid for the homes that actually changed hands:

Sources: Department of Numbers, Metropolitan Regional Information Systems' RealEstate Business Intelligence

It's interesting to see how different the median asking price and median selling price were in 2006 and how the gap has shrunk since then.

Incidentally, the asking price of the typical home for sale vs. the price of the typical home sold isn't the same as what a typical seller gets compared what he or she asked for. That is decidedly not closer together now than it was in 2006.

RBI tracks the average original list price of homes that ultimately sell. The discount was 5 percent in November 2006 and 11 percent this past November, RBI says. 

What gives? Two things, probably.

The asking prices on the graph above -- for homes actively for sale -- are a snapshot at the time rather than whatever those homes on the market were originally listed at.

And perhaps more importantly, would-be sellers and buyers nowadays have had years to get accustomed to the idea that it's a down market and set their expectations accordingly. In late 2006, that was still a new thought. Sales activity was dropping but prices weren't; they just weren't rising at the fast clip of a year or two earlier.