Here in northern VA, inventory is up 400% since march 05 (Data). How about the headlineL: "Sales Flat, Inventory Skyrockets"?
I have inlaws in the Virginia Beach area who have seen a tremendous runup in the valuation of their condo in the last few years but their last report says that much of that has disappeared recently and the husband is telling the wife,"I told you we should have sold and you didn't want to".
Condos are a special case here, there are many in desirable locations because that's all they can build there. OTOH, there are lots of condos being built (about 10k / year) and demand is not going to keep up. Bottom line, a colleague just picked up a nice but small condo for 180 that would have been 250 a year ago, but bigger condos in the same building are still in demand when they are (rarely) offered. Bottom line is that run-of-the-mill or small condos will do poorly. I saw the same thing around Boston in 1991. But ten years later they were doing well again.