High prices, cooling market?

The Star Bulletin reports that Oahu housing prices set a new record in March:

"The median sales price for single-family homes continues to increase, establishing another record for Oahu at $650,000," said Mary K. Flood, president of the Honolulu Board of Realtors. The condominium median price declined slightly this month, but it is still near the record level achieved in February of $315,000."

The median price among the Oahu houses sold in March rose 23.7 percent from the year-earlier median of $525,500."

Not everyone thinks the news is entirely rosy:

"I would really think that it was just a blip, because the trend is down and we have passed the peak of sales," said Harvey Shapiro, Honolulu Board of Realtors research economist. "A rest is clearly in order."

"Even with the higher number of residential sales in March, total sales for the first quarter showed a small decline from last year," said Shapiro. "This reduced demand, along with the renewed availability of housing, means that the market is moving forward on its path toward stabilization."

When realtors start talking about "a rest" and "stabilization" and "normalization", isn't that just code for "downturn"?