Headed to Pomme de Terre lake in Missouri this weekend for a club bass fishing tournament. Yeah, I know it doesn't have anything to do with real estate, but there actually is life outside of real estate and those who know me understand my "hobby". We'll leave early in the morning (4am!!!....no sane person is awake at that time of day!), get to the lake around 8am or so and LAUNCH! Yep, the boat...my partner has a beeeeautiful Ranger with a 300 Mercury Verado. Now for those of you that don't have this kind of hobby, and don't know what a 300 Verado is.....THAT IS A BIG MOTOR. We can zip along the surface at a miniscule 75mph until we get to that sweet spot where we are certain that the biggest fish in the lake is currently hiding. I dont' know why they have to build them to go that fast. I guess it's one of those "boys will be boys" things. Anyway, we'll get a feel for what the fish are biting on, when they are biting, in what depth of water they will be biting. In fishing terms...we'll try to figure out a "pattern"...lol. Tournament days are Saturday and Sunday with the team having the heaviest cumulative weight for the two days being the WINNER! So, now that you know what I'll be doing this weekend, you also know that I won't be thinking too much about real estate. With the projected rains for the weekend, I'll probably be trying to figure out how to stay dry for the next three days.
Okay...back to O'Fallon, Illinois real estate and buying or selling homes in our area....I've been thinking a lot about our market and of course listening to newcasts and reading articles on the doom and gloom in the housing market across the country, and I've come to this conclusion: "They know not what they say"...in other words, I think most of the pundits draw this overall conclusion that the market has tanked EVERYWHERE! Well, I'm here to tell you that the market in our area: St. Louis Metro East and specifically the O'Fallon, Shiloh, Mascoutah, Swansea, and Troy markets are still very good! Now, are those markets as good as they were 2-3 years ago? No...absolutely not. But it's still good. We're seeing and hearing from a number of buyers looking for homes in our area. Sure, some of those buyers are being relocated to Scott Air Force Base, but we're starting to see that local move-up buyer again. They know there are some pretty good deals out there and they've started looking again. I am optimistic that 2009 will be a very good year for the local real estate market. We'll not see the numbers that we saw a couple of years ago, but 2009 WILL be better than 2007/2008.
Politically speaking, I doubt that it will matter a great deal to the real estate market whether McCain or Obama is elected. Personally, I like Obama's message, but I, like many others are concerned about the lack of experience. I'm not a huge McCain fan either, but I do like the fact that he's been around the block a few times. His choice for running mate (Palin), I thought was a brilliant choice in terms of his quest for Presidency. In my opinion he does NOT get elected without Palin as his choice. He still may not get elected, but his chances are much greater with her on board. Politicians in general...at least to me...are not very genuine. The last and probably only politician that I remember as being pretty genuine was Ronald Reagan and he seemed to breathe new life into our country that I believe only HE could do at that time. To me, Sarah Palin is genuine. I think voters will indeed relate to her. In fact, her popularity at this point is driving the polls I think.....big time! I like Obama's rhetoric..I really do. But he has that politician "edge" at this point which turns me off. A lot of his messages recently have been geared toward Republican/Bush/McCain/Palin bashing instead of focusing on the specifics of his goals for our country while he's in the White House. Again, in terms of the real estate/housing market....I don't think either of the candidates will have much of an impact...nuff said.
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