Rod's Blog

Office of the Comptroller for the State of NY has an interesting report  on real estate values and foreclosure rates throughout the state through for the year ending 2009. Chautauqua County fares pretty well overall- and the report shows value trends by school districts. You can see it here  http://www.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/pubs/research/snapshot/0610snapshot.pdf . I called the comptoller's office and asked for the underlying data for the reports because the data map was, in my opinion, a little bit weird; it showed  for a local school district with a value trend of 0% to minus 18%,  a curiously broad range from "flat as a pancake" to "falling like a rock". Upon examination of the underlying data, it appears that district did decline one tenth of one percent (0.1%) which, I suppose, falls within that 0% to -18% range (!) but it is statistically a flat-line.  Overall, the report does reflect my experiences in the market, i.e., we haven't tanked. A few areas and market segments have modest gains, a few have small declines and most are flat, flat, flat. It does appear that the "high end" is stressed more than any other segment at this time.