November 24th, 2007 2:22 PM by Brian Wess
Greetings & Salutations :o)
Well it's been a few months since we hit a technical snag with my blog and interestingly it came around the same time that the lending industry seemed to implode.
Unfortunately with the "if it bleeds it leads" mentality of the media, and consequently the public, one would think that the entire real estate industry is crashing.
First off, there is no such thing as a "National Real Estate Market" because ALL real estate is local and can even be so local as to be neighborhood specific. Media pundants can talk about nationwide trends till they are blue in the face, but that does not make it true where you live.
For example, Austin, Texas and Salt Lake City, Utah are still experiencing very vigorous, even booming, real estate markets with homes being bought and sold well ahead of "National Averages".
Where a local real estate market stands today is largely dependent on where it was just last year with regard to how much over or under appreciation it was seeing. For example, places like Naples, Florida (105% over value) Southern California and Las Vegas were by all estimates highly over valued areas with out of control and unsustainable appreciation rates. As the result, they are now experiencing heavy market corrections of home pricing. Anyone who bought in the last 2 or 3 years in those markets and has to sell now is probably going to loose money.
In Colorado Springs, however, values were an extremely healthy only 4% to 6% over value prior to the current market correction and homes continue to sell even if it is about 16% slower than last year a this time.
People are still getting loans, but they have to be at least reasonably qualified and demonstrate some financially responsibility.
Market corrections are a healthy and necessary thing to keep the market affordable and in balance. Sellers had a long run up of appreciation over the last 10 to 15 years, now it's time for the buyers to take advantage of all the selection and in some areas moderated pricing, but don't wait too long.
As we with sellers who tried to wait till the top of the market to sell and waited too long, so too as a buyer the time to take advantage of the favorable market conditions is limited and nearly impossible to time precisely.
For a buyer, the winter months between November and February are perfect because there is a natural lull that takes place in the market during the holiday season. Combine that with market conditions and an interest rate that are NOT likely to last through spring 2008 and this is the perfect time to take advantage of the market and buy...as long as you are planning to live in or hold the property as an investment at least for 4 to 5 years.