A potentially complicated, controversial topic amongst those following the housing market is how Shadow Inventory will impact the housing “recovery”.  On the web you will find almost an equal amount of articles explaining why the shadow inventory will challenge the housing recovery until 2015.  Look at another URL and you will find positive remarks on how the banks are releasing foreclosures now and how “robo signing” issues are resolving in the courts.  First and foremost we must realize there is no typical free market economics in play here and no one knows the exact impact of to-date government intervention, state and federal fall out of massive files involved in the foreclosure process, the impact or non-impact of the “jobless recovery”, or how the EURO economic fallout will impact the real estate market  for any foreseeable future. You have probably heard the saying, “all real estate is local”.  Believe it or not, this is not simply a National Association of REALTOR® tag line.  I know, you don’t believe me.  But really, real estate is so very local you must understand the market neighborhood by neighborhood and more importantly, street by street.  Neighborhood boundaries don’t exactly follow zip code lines.  School boundaries do not follow neighborhood lines. All of those don’t follow generic San Jose reports.  To understand current conditions and/or even attempt to predict where a particular group of housing prices will go in the future, is extremely hyper local and can not be wrapped up into averages.  Speaking of averages, medians, and the like, the one statistical component that the real estate market predictions rarely include is standard deviation.  In my very humble opinion, this is where the rubber hits the road in regards to how a true real estate professional can help buyers and sellers understand the local market. …