REAL ESTATE

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The truth is that the mythic beast called the "bottom of the market" is visible only in hindsight; you can't identify it until it's over. Put another way—as illogical as it sounds—buyers may feel motivated only if their position erodes a bit, which happens when sales start to pick up or interest rates increase, says Foreman.

Of course, that ephemeral thing called the "top of the market" can also be seen in a rearview mirror only, as it's fast receding. Per all Connecticut sources, the top of our market was the third and fourth quarters of 2005 during an unusually strong summer and fall selling season. And just for fun, we're going to call its tippy top August 2005, when Phil Donahue's home sold in Westport (after just a couple of weeks on the market, on or close to the $25 million ask, the top price ever paid in that town).

To be clear, we're not looking for a return of that brand of "irrational exuberance," to borrow the title of Yale economist Robert Shiller's bestseller (who borrowed it from ex-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan). But experts are forecasting the end of what will be an 18-month adjustment period during the first half of 2007.

So, why the trough in the first place?

"Real estate is always cyclical. We're coming off a 10- or 12-year run up in prices with homes increasing in value by 10% every year. We can't sustain that," says Carl Tooker of William Pitt Sotheby's International Realty offices in Stamford, who explains that boom cycles typically last just seven or eight years. The bust that probably should have occurred around 2003 was forestalled by super-low interest rates. "Salaries can't keep pace, and the value isn't there."