Flashes of Panic

One of my sometime training partners referenced this story in the Glob, which lists the top-25 ZIP codes (inside 95/128, naturally) where “…neighbors are smart, restaurants are plentiful, commuting is easy, and, best of all, home values are still strong.” It’s an interesting list; the predictable tony suburbs are on there, but there are some (e.g. a section of Roxbury, noted for its “marked racial diversity”) which are a little less predictable. (The training partner who pointed this article out lives in a third-floor walkup in Inman Square, which is one of the three Cambridge ZIPs on the list.)

The trick here is that they’re citing all of these ZIPs as having “still strong” home values. And yet… the methodology is to look at prices from 2002 to 2007. I’m guessing this is because there isn’t enough solid data to go very far into 2008, and maybe I haven’t been paying close enough attention, but isn’t any actual decline in home values a fairly recent thing? Even if it showed in 2007 numbers, isn’t it likely that nothing has slid all the way back to 2002 yet?

Seems to me that there’s a possibility some of these ZIPs aren’t quite as rock-solid as the Glob wants them to be.

(No, I haven’t looked to see where 01002 would stand in the list.)

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