• Greg imagined that lower inventory levels during those years may have lead to higher prices.  (I think inventory levels were actually quite high at the time, though I wasn't tracking inventory in the city versus county at the time.)
   
  
• Brad is quite certain that it was solely to make the graph resemble the Massanutten Peak. (Definitely the most creative suggestion of the day, though I suggested that the peak in prices should have then been in Rockingham County.  Perhaps Brad thinks Massanutten is in the City of Harrisonburg?)
   
  
• Brett suggested it might have been a result of the home buyer tax credit that created the temporary boost.  (I think there is definitely some validity to this idea.  At first I thought that it couldn't be true because the tax credit would have spurred on lower-value sales from first-time buyers, but I was ignoring the fact that those first-time buyers could have triggered several move-up buyers.)
   
  
• Chandra pointed out that high gas prices at the time could have created more buyer demand in Harrisonburg, thus increasing home prices.  (At first I refuted this idea because many people are quite willing to commute -- but I do remember this being a focus for buyers at the time -- being closer to their place of employment.)
   
  
• Karl hypothesized that lower home prices caused some buyers to stretch to buy a more-affordable-than-ever single family home instead of a townhouse.  (This would certainly correlate well with the significant slow down in townhouse sales during the same time period.)
   
  
• Teri raised several intertwined perspectives, including buyers trying to go green and live closer to work, a lack of County sales that may have kept those values lower than City values, and younger buyers and investors being more willing to buy in the City.  (I think each of these have validity, though they're difficult to prove empirically.)
  

Thank you all for your perspectives, and for engaging in some thoughtful debate as to why single family homes performed better in Harrisonburg than in Rockingham County between 2009 and 2012. 

As to the Starbucks reward for fantastic insights, I'm calling it a tie between Brett and Karl.  I'll be in touch to get each of you a Starbucks gift card. 

Stay tuned for the next time I get stuck figuring out the WHY of some of our local housing market data.