Some of you think this, don't you?  For the past month I have been discussing this topic (via e-mail) with a statistician at JMU, and it has been a very helpful dialogue (for me) as I've explored some new perspectives from which we can examine home values. 

The statistician's hypothesis is that homes have increased so quickly in value here in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County, that they are now significantly overvalued and will need to decline by 30% - 50%.  I started to explore this a few weeks ago in this article:  Home Value Projections for Harrisonburg and Rockingham County.

But here's the latest...



Here's what we're seeing above:

• The blue line shows actual median home sales prices based on data from the Harrisonburg-Rockingham MLS. 
  
• The green line uses the 2000 data point from the blue line, and then tracks what the median sales price "should be" --- by accounting for inflation, as well as a 2.3% increase per year.
• The 2.3% increase per year is the average increase in home values per year (after inflation) per the U.S. Census Bureau.
• Per the chart above, between 2005 and 2008, homes were indeed "over-valued" in our market.  But with the relatively steady median sales price since 2007, we are now getting back towards the projected median sales price given normal inflation and normal home value increases.
• As you can see, the actual median sales price in 2009 and the predicted median sales price are very close --- in fact, there is only a 2.78% gap between the two data points.
  

My Conclusion:  Homes (as a whole) in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County are not significantly over-valued, but it may be until the end of this year, or into next year that we start to see a steady increase in prices again.

Your Conclusion:  Regardless of whether you are a statistician or someone who just barely understands the chart above, I'd love to hear your thoughts.  What do you think of the data presented here?   Do you think homes in our area are over-valued?

  For those of you who just have to see the numbers....