Not that you have to worry about reading it in the print media anytime soon, but just to give you a head’s up the reported median price for Belmont in June fell from $1,098,750 in May to $892,500  or 18.7% in June. Of course we’re here to put that stunning decline in perspective.

Smaller homes sold in June as compared to May skewing the median price as smaller homes tend to sell for less. The median size home in June was a whopping 390 square feet smaller than in May. At the going rate of $530.00 per square foot that accounts for $206,700 of price differential. Accounting for this, the adjusted median price for June would be $1,099,200—statistically unchanged.

(Click on the graph for a full-size view)

↑Sale were up slightly as there were 20 sales in June compared to 17 in May

↔The number of homes selling at or above asking stack up like this:

	May 2008	June 2008	Δ
Sold Over Asking	5	4	-1
Sold at Asking	1	3	+2
Sold Under Asking	11	13	+2

In Summer, homes historically sell for less in Belmont in terms of the seller’s asking price so we’re scoring this as essentially no market indicator one way or another.

With half of the year over and behind us there’s not been a huge change in values despite the mortgage woes and higher than typical inventory. Foreclosures have had little impact on Belmont’s home values as the lending practices which gave rise to the current state of affairs in many areas of the country simply didn’t apply to Belmont’s more expensive median price point.

The question becomes not when will the market recover but when will it hit bottom. Our intuition tells us that the market will languish at the bottom for awhile before any appreciable median price increases take place. Of course it’s entirely possible we are already at the bottom, or that the bottom has passed—only time will tell. But Belmont’s market indicators seem to be suggesting that we are in a housing lull and perhaps what was going to happen to our market already did.

*One note on the above chart. The home on South Road sold but with a lease option. We estimated the selling price to complete the statistics since the monthly lease payment was recored in MLS, not the actual agreed upon purchase option price.

Full market reports are available by the tenth of each month at MorganHomes.com