In other words, homes that would have sold for $900,000 in 2004 sold for more than a million last year.

Trends in January and February are notoriously bad at predicting upcoming activity. Is the market taking a breather? Or is it starting to tumble? It's impossible to say, there's nothing really ominous in the numbers, but we won't know for another couple of months.

Today's Bay Area real estate market has all the characteristics of a relatively normal balanced market. We knew the year-ago numbers were unsustainably strong. Right now it looks like current trends will last well into 2006, with strong, but not record-breaking sales, and continued appreciation.

We're a bit surprised at how stable the market is in all categories. Usually one segment of the market will be outperforming the others. Right now, though, the same trends apply to all parts of the market from entry-level on up.

The frenzied part of this real estate cycle is behind us and what we're seeing so far is a normalizing of the market. Mid-market and entry-level homes are selling well, the move-up and prestige markets are leveling off.

Because of the rise in home values, much of that financial distress has been covered by the increasing amount of equity that people have had in their homes. That equity is now being created at a slower pace, and default activity is inevitably on the rise.