Don’t believe me? Take last year’s data and decrease the value all homes 10% and then start taking out some of the low end sales and adding in a record sale (which happened). It doesn’t take long until your average sold price is a net positive despite the fact that you have decreased the value of every single property by the same percentage.

When a seller contacts us to list a property for sale we provide that seller with a range of suggested list prices after preparing a comparative market analysis (CMA). This CMA is based on current inventory levels and the recent sold prices of comparable properties. However, it is ultimately the seller who determines the final list price. I will tell you that some sellers in our market shoot much higher than our suggested prices while others do not. Each seller has his or her own motivation for selling as well and those motivations are certainly factored into what that seller ultimately sets the price at.

Regardless of what we or the seller might think a property may be worth in the beginning of the sales process - in the end though, a piece of real estate is only worth what a ready, willing, and able buyer is willing to pay. In the three examples above - yes, the list price/sold price ratios are not good by any means. However, I do believe a good statistical sample involves more than 3 properties though.

According to our MLS for all of 2007 - the list price to sold price ratio of all residential properties sold in the Deep Creek Lake area was 95.5% - the average list price was $572,443 and the average sold price was $546,698. I doubt either one of us could find a healthier ratio in all other Maryland counties, in addition to other regional or national markets for that matter.

We are certainly down in the number of transactions (sales). No one is going to argue that fact and there is no way to manipulate those numbers. But the numbers also show that the average sold price in the Deep Creek Lake market continues to climb. So if property values continue to rise and the number of sales are down - is that considered a declining market? To be in decline - a market must be showing decreases in both values and the number of transactions. Since our property values are still increasing we can’t be in a decling market.

Is our market as super strong as it was between 2003 and 2005? I would certainly say not - those years will probably be considered our “boom” years when we reflect back in the future. In my opinion, 2006 and 2007 is quite simply our market getting back to normal - nothing more, nothing less.

A few examples from your “Sold Gallery”:

926 MARSH HILL RD List: $749,000 Sold: $600,000

1844 MARSH HILL RD List: $565,000 Sold: $515,000

STOCKSLAGER List: $185,900 Sold: $150,000

So are your agents overly optimistic when listing properties or is the market truly in decline (even at Deep Creek Lake)? I don’t see how you can manipulate these numbers in any way to suggest the DCL market is “well and improving each and every day”.

Another misinformation campaign from a familar source.