$215K, and if he had sold 10% ago he would have saved a "fortune"? Everything's relative I guess.
As far as house prices holding I suggest waiting until the summer selling season is fully underway before making a judgment either way. Looking at a very affluent "recession" proof area of metro west Boston the homes that are selling are selling for a substantial discount to last fall (on average down 8% and some down as much as 15%). Either the desperate cases will sell and the prices will stabilize higher or this is the beginning of the cascade that will last a few years before we hit bottom. The number of empty nesters who had counted on their home equity to help them retire comfortably are increasingly having to rethink their retirement date and even their lifestyle expectations for retirement. They need to sell to save money on taxes, utility bills, maintenance, and yet they don't want to sell what they still think is a temporary dip. Maybe they are right but who will be buying their houses at 2006-7 prices when the easy money stated income loans are no longer available, jobs are not paying as much and everything costs more, and people are leaving the high price high tax areas (where property taxes are just going higher). Personally I think the smart ones will sell this summer and take what they can get , those that hold out even though they can sell now with a 300% appreciation for having held the last 10 years, will likely pay for the mistake in 2009 and 2010. Demographics will drive the selling with the 1st boomers hitting retirement age this year, the past mortgage excesses have done a very cruel thing and have raised peoples expectations of what they should expect to get out of their house. It might not be too bad though as the places that are really suffering from what I hear are certain suburbs of Phoenix where there is a for sale sign on practically every lawn and developments that are ghost towns, a great spread trade for the old timers in the northeast where prices are still reasonably high.
I have been looking at some tear downs recently and on lots where last year houses were selling in the mid 700s now they are asking mid 600s but based on all the building that was done the last 2 years the new houses that are on the market for 900-1M put the price of tear downs at high 300K-mid 400K depending on the lot. Working backwards that puts the current crop of crappy ranches that are basically tear downs priced 100-200K above what they are worth by this metric, which is also close to what rents are suggesting properties are worth and even the 600K-2M SFH rentals are just sitting there month after month despite ridiculously low rents (i.e. 850K, a cheaper house in one of the best areas for rent for $2800 has been on the market for 120 days, one of many).