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It’s a buyer’s market.   There are many foreclosures flooding the market, and the inventory of listed homes and FSBO’s has reached record highs all over the country.   So have prices dropped dramatically?   In some areas of the country, the answer is yes, but in other areas, the answer is, “not by much.”

Here’s a quick comparison of real estate prices in Arizona and Washington.

The Arizona Republic reports that, “In the Glendale ZIP code 85305, the median price of a home fell from $385,000 at the peak in 2006 to $227,000 today, which is about what it was in 2004.   The overall median home price in the Valley has dropped around 30 percent from $267,000 to $180,000 in the same time period.”   ((See Falling Home Prices Erasing What Many Valley Owners Gained))

Heading north to the Northern Olympic Peninsula in Clallam County, here’s a vignette of prices of homes sold in 2006 and thus far in 2008.

AVERAGE PRICE IN 2006

MEDIAN PRICE IN 2006

$287,075

$269,000

$279,357

$263,500

Days On Market:   84

Days On Market:   59

AVERAGE PRICE IN 2008

MEDIAN PRICE IN 2008

$274,303

$249,900

$262,157

$243,500

Days On Market:   120

Days On Market:   77

Clearly the prices in the Northwest have not crashed as in some other areas.   On one hand this is good news for sellers up north, but good news in this market is often a scintilla of anything positive.   The reality is that homes are still not selling in a reasonable period of time, such as 90 days, even at reduced prices.

Until the market begins to show signs of coming back in areas like Arizona and California, the market in Clallam County Washington won’t come back strong either.   The majority of buyers of homes and land in Sequim, Washington come from from the I-5 corridor to the south.

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