The news you don’t want to hear: End of housing crisis not close
We all want to wake up to good news, right? We’d like to open the morning paper to see that stocks are soaring, housing prices are beginning to rise and the unemployment numbers are falling.
Well, that morning edition isn’t here yet. Instead, the morning papers today contain the typical grim news that the economy, and the housing market, aren’t recovering just yet.
The New York Times ran an interesting story this morning saying just that. Writer David Leonhardt attended a housing auction in Washington, D.C. to judge whether or not housing prices still had a ways to fall. His opinion? Yes, they do. Housing prices haven’t yet stabilized. Real estate experts can say that we’re near the bottom, but they don’t really do. It’s the buyers, after all, who are in charge. And they still want housing prices to dip lower.
And today, what the buyers want, the buyers get. Just ask any home seller.
Leonhardt concludes his story with some advice for buyers who are still waiting for prices to fall a bit before entering the housing market. Relax, he tells them. Prices are still falling. And they’re going to fall for a while. The savviest of buyers, then, those looking for the best bargains, still have some time before they have to make an offer on a home.
This contrasts mightily with the new television ads being run by the National Association of Realtors. The ads show people walking past homes with “For Sale” signs on them. Only thing is, all the “For Sale” signs have little “Sold” placards on them. Then a double of that person sneaks up behind them and kicks them in the posterior.
Get it? If buyers don’t make a move now, they’ll be kicking themselves later for missing out on some great deals.
If you’re a consumer, who do you believe? Do you go with Leonhardt, who says that prices are still falling? Or do you go with the Realtors association, which says that we’re pretty much at the bottom now, and you’ll regret not buying now?
Well, remember this: The National Association of Realtors spent years arguing fiercely that there was no such thing a as a housing bubble, and the home prices would never crash.
You see how well that prediction turned out, don’t you?
