Real Estate Crash: How's Your City Doing?

A provocative infographic tracks peak to trough home value fluctuation in 21 markets across the U.S. from 2000 to 2009.

Regarding the San Francisco chart, one comment queries, "I'd love to know what area falls into the San Francisco bucket. Everything from the city down to San Jose is pretty solid...maybe -5% tops."

This seems to be true in my neighborhood, at least for the moment. A 1000 square foot Victorian era cottage with no parking and a washer/dryer that required walking outside and around the house to access was on the market for one week and sold for an $875,000 asking price. That's $875 a square foot. This astounded everyone in my building, given the state of the economy.

One caveat to keep in mind. The co-author of the article is Henry Blodget, the controversial equity research analyst who achieved fame during the dot com boom and is now barred from working in the securities industry. He has parlayed his insights and infamy into consulting work, and is the Co-Founder and and Editor in Chief of the blog Silicon Alley Insider.