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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Doughboy who wrote (16129)	1/19/2004 9:15:05 AM
From: Tradelite	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

<<I would not be surprised to see prices fall 5-10% or stay the same for several years>> No one would be surprised to see that. Spending time talking about it, however, is not as important as preparing for it. Long-term holding in real estate is the premise one should subscribe to whenever venturing into ownership. I would also caution against subscribing to too many ivory-tower discussions of real estate in general--there are plenty of those on this thread. The market governs real estate. The market consists of buyers and their own particular fortunes in the economy and their ever-changing personal tastes, and the market can turn on you-- or for you-- so fast, you won't have time to analyze it all until it's already happened.

To: Doughboy who wrote (16129)	1/19/2004 11:13:30 AM
From: Tradelite	Respond to of 306849

<<real estate prices are going to be suppressed as consumers go more toward renting vs. owning.>> Doughboy, your perspective is not necessarily wrong, but it just doesn't apply in many DC-area communities (mainly suburban communities) where the primary market is families with kids--NOT single people, confirmed city dwellers, or transient folks who move around a lot in their careers. Families seldom become renters if they can help it, because they intend to stay for a while. They also tend to seek out the best schools for their kids, and find few family-sized rental properties at all in those areas. On top of that, I'm not sure there has ever been a time in the past 50 years when consumers in our area have done what you suggest--"go more toward renting vs. owning". If that were true, we'd be over-run with apartment buildings. I cut my baby teeth in real estate, selling condos in apartment-converted buildings in the Arlington/Alexandria area back in the 1970s. By the way, you seem a little worried about the future value of condos in the DC area. Well.....you should see what has happened with the one-and-only condo building to be built in "downtown" McLean in many decades--still under construction. It's a luxury condo project priced at a minimum of $900+K per unit and well over $1 million for most. The higher priced units sold immediately--long before the project will be even out of the ground--and reportedly, the buyers are all older people who have lived in the area for years and decided to trade in their houses for more convenient living within walking distance of stores and services. Same thing happened when a developer tore down the historic Evans Farm Inn in McLean, and is still putting up luxury townhomes on that acreage, all priced at a million and up. Local folks are the buyers. They reportedly say they want more time to play golf at their local country clubs instead of taking care of lawns, and they like the elevator option the builder is willing to install in the townhomes. Watch out for older Americans and baby-boomers. They got bucks! And renters, they're not.