I'm currently looking for a Market Forecast for home prices in
Montgomery County, Maryland.  Have home prices ever go down or got
stagnant for the last 30 years?  What is the outlook/forecast for home
appreciation for the next 10 years (both assuming interest rates stay
around 7% or higher than that)?

The reason why I'm asking this is because, I currently live in
Gaithersburg, MD (20877) and while I definetly want to buy a house (to
pay less taxes, have more space, and built equity), I'm a little
scared of buying a house in this area because home prices are
currently at record levels and I'm afraid that if I buy at this
moment, I'll get stuck with house that does not appreciate and/or does
not sell in the next 5 years.  I'm pretty familiar with this area and
I can tell you from personal experience that in the last 3 years homes
have appreciated at a rate of 25% of more (stupid me made the mistake
of not buying a house 3 years ago).

"Measured over the last five years, one of the fastest appreciating
markets in the country was the District of Columbia -- which OFHEO
counts as a state for statistical purposes -- where the average house
has gained a stunning 81.4 percent in resale value. The five-year gain
for the Washington metropolitan area was 52.8 percent. Bostonregion
houses gained 74 percent in the same period, Los Angeles area houses
gained 58.8 percent, and New York houses were up by 67 percent. "
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A31369-2003Sep5&notFound=true

I'm a concerned that I'll be buying a house at a market peak and soon
afterwards (2 years) interest rates go up (which is a high
probability), the market will cool down and the prices will go down,
thus ending with a morgage for a house wich is worth a lot less.
While I have found great information at
http://researchtools.choosemaryland.org/Comparison/index.asp?FA=3 I
believe that the market is likely to fall apart even though the
unemployment rate is 2.8% county wide (especially if interest rates go
up).  My take is that home prices will likely stagnate but I'm not
sure if there is a chance of home prices going done (thus my need to
find out if house prices have ever gone down in this county and if so
which areas).
In addition, there are other issues that have me concerned:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A1432-2003Sep12&notFound=true

Am I being paranoid?

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Clarification of Question by fernando2000-ga on 24 Nov 2003 12:21 PST

Here is a good link with information about how interest rate could
potentially slow down the home market.  The only problem is that this
is at the regional level and does not go to the local level for the DC
maryland suburbs like montgomery county:
http://aolsvc.aol.com//pf/articles/5/article.adp

In any case, I'm really looking for local info that can provide me
with a good feel of how prices have fluctuated in the past 30 years
for montgomery county.  Thanks.

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Clarification of Question by fernando2000-ga on 24 Nov 2003 12:24 PST

To put it another way...I'm looking for information that can indicate
how hot the local house market is? how inflated it is? what the
probability of going down/up is? and what is the forecast for home
appreciation??  If possible by zip codes.  Thanks.