Long Valley Real Estate Market vs. The National Real Estate Market

First, let me say that there is NO “National Real Estate Market.”  The market is local to each municipality and sometimes different neighborhood to neighborhood.  So, unfortunately, when you hear statistics on the news, those are averages from coast to coast.  The Long Valley real estate market appears to be moving in the right direction with the increased number of “Under Contract” signs you see around town, but what is the REAL story?  The saturation rate in Long Valley is still about 12+ months of inventory. What this means is that if there was not another single home to come on the market, it would take 12 months, or more, to sell all of the homes on the market at the rate that homes are currently going under contract.  A sellers’ market, where prices are going up due to low supply and high demand, is typically 5 months of inventory or less.  A balanced market runs around 6 months and a buyers’ market is more than 6 months.  Obviously, the further away from 6 months that you get, the stronger the buyers’ market and increased rate of price depreciation.  In our current situation, we are looking at probable depreciation in home values in Long Valley for the next 12 months or so.  What do you think?