This is another great question about the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County market!  The graph below shows how the median sales price has increased over the past 10 years (the blue line). 



The hypothesis would be as follows:

• There was a significant increase in median price between 2003 and 2006 (51%) -- and that was also when we started to see lots and lots of bigger homes being built and sold. 
  
• There is now an enormous supply of large/expensive homes for sale that are selling very, very slowly.
• Hypothesis: Our area's run up in median prices (2003-2006) and then stalled median prices (2006-2009) are a result of the high end market in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County.

After having looked at a few other data sets, I think I can pretty readily disprove the hypothesis (see below), but as always, I welcome your opinion and perspective as well!



First, check out the graph above.  The median price per square foot has tracked at a relatively similar growth and decline pace as the median sales price.  If the increase in price had been a result of more sales of large homes, we would have seen price per square foot stay relatively level.  We do not see that. 

Second, if the above hypothesis were true, we would see a significant run-up in the number of large homes sold up until 2006, and then a decline.  Take a look . . .

This graph shows all home sales:



Next, we see that "large" homes didn't actually decline as much as the rest of the market between 2006 and 2009:



And if we create an overlay of the two graphs we'll note that despite the vast number of large homes that are for sale, that segment of the market has actually picked up pace in the recent past as compared the rest of the market: