Bob, I am not trying to be pessimistic, just realistic. I lost a lot of money in the early 2000's waiting for the rebound that never happened. I am trying to be a lot more realistic this time around. At some point we may have a sustained upward trend in the market, but trying to judge just when that will happen is hard.
First of all, for the home sales to have a sustainable rise over a period of time, the economy needs more jobs. People out of work(and most importantly, those who afraid of losing their jobs) don't buy many houses. They like to say the unemployment rate is around 9.5 percent, but it is really much more, say around 16/17 percent(for some groups,such as construction workers, the rate is much higher). I have 3 friends, construction workers, who have been out of work for over 2 years. All of them have quit looking for work because the situation for them is so bad, and since they have quit looking, they are not counted in the unemployment rate. If I have 3 of my friends in this situation, I know there must be many others out there that have friends in the same situation.
I know of a community in another area where a real estate broker put out a listing of home sales in this community. There were about 30 homes listed that covered about 9 months of history. Of the 30 homes, 21 were foreclosures, 7 were short sales and 2 were regular sales. Foreclosures are going up, not down.
<<Aug 12, 3:47 AM (ET)
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The number of U.S. homes lost to foreclosure surged in July, another sign lenders are moving quicker to take back properties from homeowners behind in payments.
Lenders repossessed 92,858 properties last month, up 9 percent from June and an increase of 6 percent from July 2009, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.
Banks have stepped up repossessions this year to clear out the backlog of bad loans. July makes the eighth month in a row that the pace of homes lost to foreclosure has increased on an annual basis......>>
apnews.myway.com
When I was out this morning, a news bite I heard on the radio said that many people surveyed had backed out of buying a new or used house at this time and were going to wait at least 6 to 12 months before they would get back into the market. These people were concerned about the present economic situation and the lack of jobs or concern about their own job. They were going to "hunker down" until they were sure things were going to get better. I have a very good friend in another state, who had been planning to buy a new home for the last 6 months, not yet constructed, and sell his home when the new home was ready. Just 2 weeks ago, after talking to his wife, they decided not to go ahead with the purchase until next summer at least. They thought that discretion was the better part of valor. |
