I thought I’d take a look at the housing data for my area… This is from OFHEO data, so it’s not necessarily realistic, but it should give us a flavor of what has been happening.

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House sale prices in Durham are definitely falling, and are actually falling faster than in nearby Raleigh/Cary. This chart looks a little scary, until we include other cities into the mix.

As I’ve done in the past, let’s now compare the Durham market to San Diego and Miami…

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I think the home owners in Miami and San Diego would love to have the 1.5% growth that Durham has been experiencing. (FYI, the 1.5% changes is the annualized change.)

While house prices may fluctuate, the value of your house does not. As long as you don’t borrow money based on the price fluctuations (and get caught on the wrong side right now), the changes in prices shouldn’t really mean that much to you.