The real estate housing bubble has been well documented. Areas like Florida, Arizona, and nevada were overrun with get rich quick investors fueled by subprime laons of all varieties. Homeowners contributed by teruning a blind eye toweards financial responsibility in the crazy belief that the market would only go up, and they could refinance when they ran out of money on the home they could not afford in the first place. The I don't miss him head of The Fed, Alan Greenspan chastised Americans wasign their money on those stupid fixed rate mortgages. The sky was the limit. But just like Icarus who flew to close to the sun and his wings burned, we crashed like this country hadn't seen in our lifetime. Now I see people getting optimistic about values returning to the good ole days of 2006, and I want to tell them that they should have stopped smoking pot in the 60's.
Which brings us to Oklahoma. In 1982, Penn Square Bank of Oklahoma City started the banking bust brought on by too much speculation in the energy industry. Read the book Funny Money about this, sub in the word real estate and you will realize we only learn our lesson for a given amount of time. Oklahoma went from an oil bender to a crushed state. it took us 11 years just to get back to a mild recession. Sound familiar? Then Oklahoma City started on a self taxed infrasturture spending spree in the midst of the recession. Am I getting warmer? We used puvlic funds for an entertainment district, a 20,000 seat arean where the NBA Thunder now play, new streets, new schools, and a new transit system and more. You guessed it, a stimulus package! So while most of the country was real estate drunk starting in 2000 we were just coming back and missed the bubble. Even with energy prices down, we are still appreciating ever so slightly in a linear progression.
I don't see a real estate boom in the near future, but I do believe that a smaller group of dedicated professional Realtors will enjoy the fruits of their integrity. I also think Oklahoma City and the state should be an object lesson for the nation. Before you go criticizing the administration for the large public spending remember us. Without it I don't think I would be blogging today on Active Rain, paying my bills, and putting money away for my retirement. Oklahoma City would also be still trying to figure out how to move an economy.
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