The housing bubble in Carroll County has finally burst, many in the real estate business say, as housing prices dropped for the second month in a row and buyers began looking elsewhere for homes.

The average sale price for a house in Carroll County dropped about $12,000 in June from a year ago, the only decline in the Baltimore metro area, according to the Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, which tracks pricing trends in real estate. Carroll prices had a similar drop in May.

The news comes on the heels of an unprecedented housing and development boom that had taken hold in the county recently, with construction companies responding to soaring buyer interest and a seemingly insatiable demand for pricey new homes.

That flurry of activity might have produced an inflated and overdeveloped housing market, which has been worsened by a county infrastructure that has struggled to keep up with the growth.

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“Carroll County has risen to the point where the market, the buyer is saying, ‘You’re overpriced, way overpriced,’ ” said Gary Hoffer, a broker with Century 21 Real Estate in Westminster. “I would say the average home in Carroll County is 20 percent overpriced.”

Hoffer called the slowdown an inevitable market “correction” that would last at least 18 more months.

Buyers had significantly outnumbered sellers at the height of the boom, he said, but that trend has reversed.

Judy Tyree, a broker with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, agreed.

“Unfortunately, we’re not in the great times of a couple years ago now,” she said. “Sellers are now seeing this and accepting this.”

At the peak of the boom, it might have taken as little as two days for a house to sell, and at a high price, she said. Now she thinks it will take at least three months.

“It’s going to be a slow summer,” she said.

sgentile@baltimoreexaminer.com