I have been pretty insistent here that folks sitting on a primary home that has appreciated over time should consider taking what the market will bear now rather than holding out for the last dollar (if their plan is to move south). My logic is that if your house is losing, say, 6% of its market value per year, and you've had your eye on a house in a southern market that is flat or maybe slightly down, waiting is a foolish economy. The price you will get for your primary house will continue to fall proportionately faster than the one you want to buy next (or in a best case, will appreciate more slowly than the dream house). The spread will widen over just a few years, and you will be mired in your own private little inflation drama.
If you want to see a nice representation of this conundrum, check out Macromarkets.com, which displays an interactive map of housing prices in a few major cities around the country (the information is courtesy of the S&P/Case-Shiller Index, which tracks home prices across the nation). Click on the appropriate city on the map and Macromarkets displays a graph of housing prices over a 10-year span. I clicked on New York and Boston and then followed with Charlotte. The results were essentially as I expected; New York down over the last year, Boston down generally over the last few years, and Charlotte a straight line up over the decade. Atlanta is up as well, although more modestly.
Trust the numbers.
