Here in the Albuquerque real estate market, our luxury home sales (say, properties over $1 Million) have virtually gone Missing In Action.

This year, in June, only one such sale closed in the entire Albuquerque MLS. This compare with six sales over a million in June of last year, five in June of '07, and seven in June of '06.

And these real estate statistics do not pertain just to last month. Overall, so far in 2009, we've had only sixmillion-dollar-plus sales in the entire Greater Albuquerque area, and number that usually occurs in a single month! Previous years have recorded 36-43 such sales annually, while 2009, if the trend continues, will book only about a dozen of these high end home sales.

It's seems a no-brainer to conclude that this must be having a substantial impact on the overall "Average Sales Prices" recorded by the Greater Albuquerque Board of Realtors, even if there were no change at all in the prices "average" homeowners (i.e., in "non-luxury" price ranges) were receiving!

Don't believe it? Think about it. It's just like grade point averages! How high an overall grade can a student achieve if they never have any A's or B's to figure into their average? How much difference will it make to their overall grade if they have several dozen A's to bring up the average?

Here in Albuquerque, it looks like at least some portion of the decline in "average home sale prices" is attributable to the combination of the facts that our high-end properties are largely being kept off the market by sellers who prefer to wait for a better market, and luxury home buyers are largely staying put for the time being as well.

If I get some time, maybe I'll try to do a statistical analysis of just how much of the "decrease" in property values is really attributable to this one factor...

Anybody elsewhere noticing the same artifical "decreases" going on in their markets?