Augusta financial people understand the crunch

We have an abundance of financially savvy people in the SWAC area and I've had the pleasure to hear from a number of them during the current real estate assessment battle in Augusta County. Their understanding of the facts and figures is far better than mine so I defer to them on the financial technical information.

Davos is a local who writes for the financial blog Chris Martenson, and has passed along some information that may be helpful to those dealing with the current financial climate.

When the real estate battle erupted, he wrote:

The Housing market took quite the hit in 2008: "The U.S. housing market lost $3.3 trillion in value last year and almost one in six owners with mortgages owed more than their homes were worth as the economy went into recession, Zillow.com said.

"The median estimated home price declined 11.6 percent in 2008 to $192,119 and homeowners lost $1.4 trillion in value in the fourth quarter alone, the Seattle-based real estate data service said in a report today.

"About $6.1 trillion of value has been lost since the housing market peaked in the second quarter of 2006 and last year's decline was almost triple the $1.3 trillion lost in 2007, Zillow said. 'Funny, I kept hearing that prices never go down in real Estate.' "

He is sending over some YouTube videos that I will post later. My thanks to Davos and everyone else for their help.