Tell-tale stat: U.S. Treasury's Geithner rent out, not sell, Larchmont, N.Y. home

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who as most investors know has an important job in Washington, D.C., has chosen to rent out, rather than sell his home in the Village of Larchmont, N.Y., which is a suburb 18 miles northeast of New York City, where Geithner worked for years at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, The AP reported.

The Geithners put their five-bedroom, Tudor home on the market for $1.635 million in February after accepting the Treasury position with the Obama administration in Washington.

Weeks later, the asking price was dropped to $1.575 million but the house was subsequently leased for $7,500 per month, which underscores the pervasive, soft demand conditions in the nation's housing sector. Moreover, when prices are dropping in Larchmont, you know it's a rough housing market. That's because Larchmont is a village of breath-taking beauty, wonderful housing stock, village charm, and ocean splendor.

Those facts, combined with its short, 25-minute train ride into Grand Central Terminal in Midtown Manhattan make Larchmont -- you guessed it -- a preferred suburb.

Yours truly knows Larchmont pretty well: as a youth and adolescent, I spent part of every summer here during vacation stays with an aunt and uncle, and I've owned both commercial and residential property here since 1999.

But as the Geithners are learning, not even a wonderful house that's a short train commute to the capital of the world can maintain a home's value in this housing market.