Marshall Prentice Market Quotations

We're a bit surprised at how stable the market is in all categories. Usually one segment of the market will be outperforming the others. Right now, though, the same trends apply to all parts of the market from entry-level on up.

We're watching the market carefully for any signs of a turn, for any signs of the 'bursting bubble' that some analysts have been predicting. So far we're not seeing anything other than the normal incremental changes you would expect in the ebb and flow of a real estate cycle.

Trends in January and February are notoriously bad at predicting upcoming activity. Is the market taking a breather? Or is it starting to tumble? It's impossible to say, there's nothing really ominous in the numbers, but we won't know for another couple of months.

This stability means that the market will probably stay strong at least through the end of the year.

Today's Bay Area real estate market has all the characteristics of a relatively normal balanced market. We knew the year-ago numbers were unsustainably strong. Right now it looks like current trends will last well into 2006, with strong, but not record-breaking sales, and continued appreciation.

We won't know for another couple of months if this is a lull in the market or part of a longer-term downturn. It's always difficult to project from trends we see in January and February. The March numbers will tell us much more about what's going on.

Demand still seems to be there, but the sense of urgency seems to be a thing of the past. We don't expect the market to tumble, but we do expect price increases to level off between now and spring.

It's numbers like these that both bubble-theorists and market cheerleaders can pounce on to make their points. Reality is more mundane.