http://activerain.com/blogs/zeno44 Portland and National Real Estate News and Opinions en-us http://activerain.com/blogsview/417794/the-sky-is-falling-should-i-buy-a-house- <p>Enter the real estate market in 2008.&nbsp; Things are crazy.&nbsp; The subprime fall out helped propel us into a violent spin cycle.&nbsp; The inventory rates hit an all time high.&nbsp; Now the credit crunch threatens to wipe out the available money supply.&nbsp; It&#39;s a brave new world!</p><p>For the past few years, real estate has been bathed in a white hot spotlight.&nbsp; It made sense, since the market was burning white hot.&nbsp; Open up any magazine or read any news site and you were bound to read about the wonders of real estate investing.&nbsp; Late night TV showed us all how to &quot;get rich...with no money down!&quot;&nbsp; Real estate was definitely the happening thing.&nbsp; </p><p>Everyone from savvy real estate investors to first time buyers could quote you their local appreciation rates.&nbsp; They could tell you the current rate for a 5/1 ARM vs a 30/yr Fixed.&nbsp; We all understood how owning a home would help us keep more of our hard-earned money through tax savings.&nbsp; And guess what, it was all true. </p><p>However, it&#39;s time to forget everything we learned.&nbsp; Or, more accurately, it&#39;s time to remember what we forgot.&nbsp; Lost in all the financial thinking and justifications for buying real estate was the personal reasons people buy homes.&nbsp; It&#39;s not all about appreciation rates and being able to refi into a HELOC.&nbsp; Those aren&#39;t the reasons we buy homes.&nbsp; They&#39;re simply financial benefits of doing so.</p><p>No, we buy homes, or at least we used to, for personal reasons.&nbsp; We buy homes because we&#39;ve always wanted to raise our family in our home town.&nbsp; We buy homes because our employer transferred us to Portland, OR.&nbsp; We buy homes so we can paint the walls bright orange.&nbsp; We buy homes so we can stop paying rent to some nameless, faceless landlord.&nbsp; We buy homes for security and comfort.&nbsp; We buy homes because our family grew.&nbsp; We buy homes because of divorce.&nbsp; We buy homes because we sent our kids off to college.&nbsp; We buy homes because we retired.&nbsp; We buy homes to be home owners.</p><p>Listen, there are some very sound financial reasons to buy real estate.&nbsp; But there are other reasons, too.</p><p>When is a good time to buy a home?&nbsp; Whenever it&#39;s the right time for YOU!&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;</p> Jesse Knight (The Realty Network - GMAC Real Estate) Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:02:15 -0500 http://activerain.com/blogsview/417794/the-sky-is-falling-should-i-buy-a-house-