It seems as if everyday I hear the question "How's the real estate market?" It is as sure to come up as a topic of conversation as is the weather. My answer varies somewhat from questioner to questioner, but some aspects of my response are more consistent. One item I consistently remark on is that sales of the higher-end properties are near non-existent -- at least as compared to 5 or 6 years ago. I had based that statement more on belief rather than data, but now I have some data to back it up.
The following chart details all sales of residential single family homes with a sale price of $1,000,000 as is entered in our Multiple Listing Service database.
As you can see, sales of homes with a sale price of $1M or more started taking off in 2003, peaked in 2004 and 2005 at 18 units each year, faltered a little in 2006, staged a comeback in 2007, and it's all down hill since then, culminating with a grand total of one unit so far in 2010. (In other years many of these homes closed late in the year, so this total may increase.) I believe that one may conclude from this data that this portion of the market is far, far, from what it used to be. It also may be the slowest segment to recover from the downturn, but only time will tell.
I want to leave on an up note: the market is much improved over last year at the other end of the market, i.e., properties below $250K, which is a much welcomed development.