8 Reasons To Seriously Buy Real Estate on the Outer Banks in the Spring 2007'

• Because you can buy real estate on the Outer Banks this year for 20% less than you could a year and a half ago. 

• Because most of the buyers in the marketplace will be two steps too slow. Buyers tend to make two mistakes in the real estate market place. They get out too late and they get in too late. The first mistake has already been made. The buyers should have quit buying a year before they actually did. The second mistake has yet to be made, but it will. The buyers will wait too long to re-enter the market. It is just human nature to wait and see. Always that little question in the back of the mind: Are we there yet?  Is this the bottom? Truth is no one knows for sure when we will have achieved absolute bottom - only crystal balls and hindsight can perfectly answer that question. But I bet you we are very close. (In my twenty years of real estate, I wish I had a dollar for every time I have heard, "If only I had pulled the trigger back then when the market was at the bottom") Why do buyers wait too long? Because it is safe and more comfortable to sit and wait with the crowd......just a little bit longer. It's kind of like being at a dance party. The band is playing, the music is good, there are a lot of people in attendance, sitting in their chairs, but the dance floor is empty. Maybe this is your moment to take the floor and be the one that everyone looks back on a couple of years down the road and says, "You know, they really nailed it."

• Because the media and the economic analysts are not talking about a bubble anymore. Instead, they debate where we are in relation to the bottom. I've got a pile of articles that say we are most likely there.  Headlines like: "Economists See Housing in Rebound by End of ‘07", "Housing Nears Bottom", "Best moment this Decade to Buy a Home". Kenneth Harney, one of the leading real estate analysts in the nation says "All of which suggests that the 18 month market correction that followed the 4 year boom has just about run its course. From a national historical perspective we're somewhere near slack tide." Let that notion wash over you. 

• Because the sellers are motivated. Along with the sound of waves breaking on the beach intermingled with chattering seagulls, a small plane flying in the distance, wind rustling through marsh grass and children laughing in the salty spring air, there is another sound on the Outer Banks this season....the anguished cries of sellers in the real estate market place. Inventory is high and serious sellers are making deals. 

• Because there is a lot of pent up demand. Ask any Realtor on the beach and he or she will tell you the same story: Lots of calls. Lots of people looking. Lots of traffic at the new developments. Lots of people thinking.....thinking real hard. The flip-for-profit investors knocked the real buyers (the second homeowners, the primary homeowners, the retirees, the vacation homeowners, and the long term investors) to the sidelines over a year and a half ago. So while the real buyers have been on the sidelines, their ranks have been swelling. You are not alone. Once activity starts there will be a surge of activity. Not like 2003-2005, but enough to skim the cream off the top. Procrastination may cost you.

• Because interest rates are still historically very, very low. They will not stay this way forever. 

• Because the stock market has had a awfully good long run up over the past 4 and a half years. In fact, over that 4.5 year time period, for only the second time in history, the Dow went that long without a 10% correction. If the S&P 500 goes up in February (which it looks like will happen), this will be the first nine consecutive month gain of the S&P 500 since 1983. More and more analysts are saying this can't go on. What a perfect time to take some money out of the stock market and put it in real estate. (Note: this article was written on 2-23-2007 prior to the recent stock market volatility. Instead of rewriting # 7, I am leaving it as it was written because I believe it validates one of my arguments - that perhaps it is time to get some money out of the stock market and into real estate.)

• Because, over the long term, property values will go up. The Outer Banks is a very special place that ranks right up there with the top places in the world at making beautiful memories. The demand for owning property here will always be high and the supply will always be finite.

Are the stars in perfect alignment, or are just 7 out of eight in place? Good question. But maybe the question should be, "Will it get any better than it is now?

Article Courtesy of one of my Associates David Weybright- Each Office Independently Owned and Operated

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