By now you have heard...January home sales were waaaayyyy down. By my calculations, sales in ALL sectors - homes, condos, beach, mainland, etc - were down 40%-50%.

What does this portend?? Well, that "V"-shaped recovery is an extended "U". I think is was a typical post-holiday lull complicated by record low temps (man, was it cold showing houses) coupled w/ a slowly declining market. I think we'll see more "normal" (a term I use very loosely) numbers in Feb and beyond.

The bugger in the covers are now the appraisals. Arms length sellers and buyers are watching their dreams evaporate thanks to new mortgage rules that require ZERO communication between sellers, buyers, realtors, mortgage brokers, etc. This rule would have been great 4-5 years ago but there are few who believe they can get away with mortgage fraud these days...which is what these rules aim to eliminate. Now, it's the regular joes like you and me who can't move on with their lives because some appraisers are UNWILLING to correctly value our homes.