The chart below helps illustrate what has been going on in the market in the beautiful wine country town of Sonoma. 

You can see in second chart (number of homes sold) when the banks stopped lending money freely-September 2007.  The average sales price, as shown in the first chart, reflects the high number of distress sales.  That's right...  the market is taking a beating BUT it's not dead. 

I heard on KGO yesterday that about 80% of economists say that the recession is over.  They are also quick to caution that the recovery will be painful.

Now that we've all more or less adjusted to the current market I am hoping that people will be creative in their efforts to find new ways to generate revenues for themselves as they find that what they used to do no longer works in this market.

Change, like growing pains, isn't always fun at the time but ends up being better in the long run.  I really feel that is true in this case.