My parents live in Frederick, Maryland, but are currently in Harrisonburg visiting for a few days.  In talking to my dad earlier today, he made some very interesting observations about the real estate market in Frederick.

It was my dad's assessments that many properties in and around Frederick may have dropped in value as much as $50k - $100k over the past 1-2 years.  His informal, and unscientific, gauge of this value change is based on having regularly looked through the real estate section of the Frederick paper, and seeing that buyers have been able to progressively purchase more and more of a house in the $300k-$350k price range (for example). 

So --- what he is actually observing is a decrease in asking prices over the past 1-2 years, though it is likely that a relatively similar decrease has occurred in the actual selling price. 

But --- here's the rub --- he also continues to see lots of houses priced $50k - $100k higher than the rest of the market would dictate that they should be.  Some sellers seem to be refusing to accept that home values may have changed (rather significantly) in Frederick, Maryland.

To bring it back to Harrisonburg --- none of our price ranges have seen a $50k - $100k drop in value, but it is still the case that some sellers price their house within the context of a realistic understanding of our current real estate market --- and some sellers do not!