Every day there seems to be more gloom and doom in the news.  The sky is falling!  The market will never recover!  Wall Street investors are losing their shirts (as is your 401K)!  Layoffs of your neighbor down the street.  It's enough to make you hide under the covers until 2009!  Enough already. 

There are pockets of good cheer!  Our grandparents went through the Great Depression-they hung tough and made it through with gratefulness.  We sat in gas lines on even and odd numbered days in the 70's hoping the engine will keep running until we could get to the pumps for a little more.  In the late 80's and early 90's houses here in NH had the bottom fall out-leaving some of us bankrupted,  We perservered!  We are of hardy northern stock, after all.

Today houses, although much slower to happen, are still selling.  Lending institutions have gotten a well-deserved slap for what they have lured many unsuspecting consumers toward.  In time to come, this will filter out. 

And folks?  Here is a little secret...They are not making any more land!  (OK unless you want to wait a while in Hawaii) But still, houses and land are a limited commodity.  And who among us would trade those days of hiking up 5 floors just to get to our apartments?  Many of the wealthiest people in the world understand the concept of real estate.  They have taken chances on it and made their fortunes by it. 

It is scary to see your home value go down, get concerned about your jobs, not to mention the kids' education.  But this too shall pass.

Amherst, NH has been lucky to have escaped what many people in other parts of the country are going through.  But even here, it gets scary.  But scared is OK if it causes you to take action to help secure your future.  Whether you hang tight to your home and ride out what is happening in the next few months, or you find you have to sell, or consider the time to buy while the rates are low and FHA has some delicious Buyer programs, the American Dream of owing your own home is still worth it.

I invite you to visit me at www.nhHomeStaging.com

All the Best!

Mary