“ In my last entry I said I believe Marin has seen the bottom of the housing slump and is starting its slow climb back to a healthy market. It’s interesting what we think a healthy real estate market is. After the blazing last five years of real estate sales we tend to lose a bit of perspective as to what exactly is a healthy market. Historically, in most parts of the country a 6 - 8 month stock of housing inventory indicates a healthy market. Currently Marin has just over 5 months inventory of single family homes, making our current housing market stronger than most areas at their strongest. One thing areas like Phoenix and Las Vegas do not have is intrinsic value. They have miles and miles of cheap dirt where thousands upon thousands of homes can be built, subdivision by subdivision, with no intrinsic value at all. Each new subdivision squashing the home prices of the subdivisions that came before. Certainly not the story in Marin.

Unfortunately, with the year’s 2^nd quarter reports the recent news has been pretty negative, the latest being the closing of IndyMac, the nation’s second largest wholesale lender, and the concerns with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac .

Rest assured that we’ll be hearing negative news for the balance of the year but remember that “real estate is a local business” and, as I said in my last entry, our local market is definitely on the mend.