James Hagerty in his article [Housing Strength Shifts to New Markets [WSJ]](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114601454316036018.html?mod=djemPJ) notes:

>As home sales cool on the East and West coasts, some cities that missed out on the real-estate boom are becoming the strongest markets.

_Metropolitan areas whose housing markets look less healthy, at least in the short term, include Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco. All of them have growing inventories of homes and relatively weak job growth. As a result, houses that a year or two ago might have sold in hours now are languishing on the market for months, and some sellers are cutting prices._

Houston, Dallas and Atlanta appear to be postioned for future appreciation because of strong employment prospects and relatively tight inventory. These markets have been largely dormant while other metro areas are cooling, especially on the east and west coasts. New Jersey is expected to remain flat, per a NJ appraiser that I respect, but at the upper end, there is a 3-year supply.

The WSJ study says that Boston is among the worst right now. Another [study I posted a few days ago](http://matrix.millersamuelv2.wpenginepowered.com/?p=577) indicated that Washington DC was also marginal because of the rampant speculation. On a trip to San Diego a few months ago, I was struck by how many condo sales offices there were downtown, yet their employment situation is strong which may mitigate some of the problems.

I thought it was especially interesting that a realtor in Miami indicated that the surge in inventory (up 236% over the past year) would be absorbed by population growth within 12-18 months. Thats gotta be something in the order of 10,000 to 15,000 condo sales sold over this period. I find that very hard to believe.

Actually, now that I think of it, this study seemed to single out a few cities as being promising, but most of the cities on the list seem to have problems and the premise of the story isn’t really proved.