I too, am having difficulty understanding why buyers are not buying! Rates are still in the 6's, FHA is making a comeback and there are sooo many houses on the market. If I was renting I would be buying. Maybe savings are so low because the credit card companies are loan sharking everyone with their high rates.

I know that my business loans are just such high rates. I wish the new presidential candidates would address the issue and force credit card companies to cap rates at maybe 12%. No one can save any money!

In a word why they are not buying?  MEDIA.

The media hype has convinced a lot of people that it's a "BAD" market.  What they fail to mention is it is a bad market for sellers which means it's a good market for buyers. 

Conversely, if a couple of years ago, someone had said it was a GREAT market, they would have been talking about sellers and not buyers who were getting into all kinds of bidding wars and escalation clauses!

I believe the market probably won't start coming back until at least spring of next year. Until the market can absorb all the foreclosures coming on the market the downward trend will continue. Since none of us really know how many more there are going to be it's hard to say. I do know it's probably not going to be this year. Even if interest rates went to 4% which they are not going to it would take awhile to clear the back log of inventory. Altough my market is not directly affected by foreclosures, it's running only slightly higher than years past the trickle down affect of people not being able to sell in their area and subsequently not being able to move here until they do is having an affect on slowing my market down. Just keep plugging away.