When you start to see the investors start negotiating, you know we are close, there, or past the bottom.  This is because the investor-buyer is the Pro!  Their livelyhoods depend on great investments number one. And number two?  Investors have always lead buying at, or close to, or just past the bottom.  The public generally never knows when the bottom is.  Do we?  The investor buyer will lead the way.  They always have.

Take the stock market.  It is proven over and over again that the long term investor wins every time on Capital Gaining Value" than the timer and the trader.  It is no different in Real Estate.  Other than periods that we are in and beginning to end now,  it  is always a good time to buy real estate if you are in need of a home to live in.  Every month you pay rent, you are throwing your money down the drain into some elses mortgage paying it for them!  Pay for your own.  The leverage you receive on  your invested down payment far supercedes a point or two in rate or fees paid over the long hall.  The long hall meaning living in the property five to ten years or more!

Your friend that is going to wait might risk being past the bottom and buying on the rise in value! Let her know that is not a bad thing.  But just like gasoline prices near the summer going up every year and mysteriously falling in late summer,  rates will rise in the spring because housing demand rises for purchase money in spring time.  And this spring is a special spring, a presidential one at that!

The spring that signifies a "Presidential Election Year."  Read your history on what happens to housing prises, rates and the like in the first half of Presidential election years!  Then you will know what to tell her!  Negotiate with strength, and......
Buyn ow for value!

Steve Snyder
C M G Mortgage Services
Walnut Creek, CA