http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Story.aspx?guid={9F038830-DC3D-4D5D-84D5-656D6733EE90}&siteid= soft landing??
the price decline is worse when you consider that seller incentives such as plasma tv's and other add ons are not reflected. Someone asking $400,000 for their home and is willing to throw in $20,000 of incentives is shady.Because the sale will be booked as $400,000.They do this instead of just lowering asking price to $380,000. Shady shady shady business....
prices are still too expensive imo, in my area(az) most homes are still selling for double what they did 3-4 years ago.
agreed. what i find scary th ough is over half the homes being bought in past few years were purchased with no d.p. so that means all those people are under water...
I think one of the best investment ideas..is to horde some cash..wait around for next few years..when this RE problem gets worse and foreclosure sales and Bankruptcy and bank failures are in the news and at record highs....a smart buyer will be able to get some real nice panic sales.. problem is will all of these distressed sales at much lower prices begin to change the demographics of neighborhoods and communites??..the horrible poor people, and the funny immigrants are beginning to live 10 to a 3 bedroom in your neighborhood...
Just hope nobody gloats over the current pain in the housing market. My wife and I have met multiple couples with 2 houses. They bought the better house and then held unto the old one too long, thinking it was an investment. Now both are down in price, and it's very painful, they'll have to give up other things.
I'll gloat over people who let greed get the best of their judgement (can happen to anybody) AND couldn't shut up about how much paper money they were making and how anyone who wasn't taking loans and flipping houses was an idiot. I'm really thinking about one specific person.
IMHO, this correction is too long in coming. The longer it draws out the more protracted the pain, but that's how we like to take our pain in this country - long and drawn out. A house is a place to live. A mortgage provides you with a way to buy the house. When buying is cheaper than renting, its a good thing. If renting is cheaper than buying, then you most likely won't buy until your needs exceed what you can find renting. But what I don't get is married couples getting out, starting a family, and going to buy some 6000sf mcmansion(tm) the upkeep costs of which will rape them alive, filled with wasted space (500sf bathrooms - how many feet do you need to relieve yourself in?) and vaulted 20 foot ceilings which are impossibly expensive to heat and cool and echo like crazy. You need 2000 sf for you and your s.o. and perhaps up to two kids while they are young. That's all. When they get older, you move up to a 3500 sf home if you want to. A nice 50's style ranch does it just fine. And lo and behold - that's now the new hot design style - the return of the 50's home with current upgrades. requiescat im pacem, uselessly large homes in bland neutral colors. (Although I will be happy to pick up one of the larger and well built homes from the 50's-60's when they become sufficiently depressed in price and reno it.) Sorry, bit of a rant.