Some excerpts, reprinted here with permission from Ian Charle's article Behavioral Tendencies

"Fear and anxiety in Marin real estate have persisted longer than is normal since the financial crisis erupted in 2008, suggesting there is something more to our uneasiness about home prices today.  Misguided behavioral tendencies can sometimes cloud intuition and get in the way of market efficiency, since it is human to want to avoid loss of wealth as it is to breathe.

Fear and anxiety aside, the Marin real estate market will likely trade sideways without any big movements until three dynamics take hold; 1.the San Francisco job market  greatly improves, 2. home financing from banks begins to flow and 3. the markets on Wall Street give confidence to all who watch them.  Since these items are interrelated, it's safe to say that we are not there yet. But the question is, are we closer to the conclusion of hard times than we are to their beginning?

Some Marin agents today are pointing to the 11 percent increase in median sales prices in May 2010 versus May 2009 as the first signs of better things to come.  Other agents are excited  about the number of properties sold in Marin during May 2010, up 29 percent from those sold in May of 2009.  Although these trends are encouraging for those hoping to sell, the should be considered alongside the fact that the first quarter of 2010 pales in comparison to the first quarter of 2007, with median sales prices and volumn down 21 percent, and 19 percent respectively.  That means there are still a lot of homeowners out there who are upside down in their properties.

During the boom years, homes sold that were largely driven by competitive multiple offers and the "irrational exuberance" of never ending appreciation.  The current economic and tight lending enviroment has reset the rules of the game, and now homes are valued to a great extent (not entirely) by the metric of, "price per square foot."