I almost hit the center median while driving home on I-75 tonight. It's a couple of hours later and I am still in disbelief at what I heard. As Sophia on the Golden Girls would begin, "Picture it. Dallas. 2008. A skilled REALTOR who blogs frequently and has a lot of opinions is driving home at the end of the day listening to local public radio station. On the nationally aired show Marketplace he hears a real estate story...
The story I heard was about people trying to decide whether to list their homes for sale in a market with lots of inventory and not a lot of buyers. The commentator speaks with a couple who want to sell their home in order to buy a larger one. They take the very sensible approach that they recognize that home values in their community have fallen lately, but that it is OK because the value of whatever they buy will have fallen as well.
And then it happens... The commentator tells us that the couple being interviewed is looking forward to a complete collapse of the housing market. And this is serious! The commentator on the story continues to explain that the couple in the story saw a 100% increase in the value of their home in the first two years that they owned it and that it has resulted in a property tax burden which makes their home nearly too expensive for them to live in, so a complete collapse would drive home values down to a manageable level from a tax burden perspective and would allow them to purchase the larger home they desire.
So is this what the home buying public is waiting for? A complete collapse? And do people actually believe that our local municipalities will not have to find other ways to tax us if property taxes drop? None of our infrastructure costs will go down. People will still demand that our streets and sewer systems be maintained, that police patrol the streets, fires be extinguished quickly and that our children still receive a quality education.
What scares me most is that if this couple was willing to go on national radio and say such a thing, there must be others out there who agree with their thinking. Like I said, I almost hot the center median with my car from the shock.
What do you think???
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