Indecision 2011
I'm re-blogging this post written by colleague Patricia Kennedy, who works in the Washington D.C. market.
It applies here too, and the points made are valid. Buyers are skittish now. My attitude is that a person has two options on where they live: they either rent, or they own. (Unless, of course, they live in a van down by the river.)
Pat makes points that I agree with -- it's a WHOLE LOT better to buy NOW than in 2006.
All around me, my colleagues are selling houses. At the moment, I am not.
Over the past couple of months, I've run into buyers, both my own clients and those of other agents showing my listings, who seem to be totally impaired when it comes to buying a house, at least right now. Why? They are informed. They listen to the news. And their car radio tells them that housing sales for May were down compared to May of 2010.
They're afraid prices will go down further
- They're afraid that Greece will go down the tubes
- They are afraid that congress will take away the mortgage tax deduction
- They are afraid they'll lose their jobs
- They are afraid that they won't be able to sell the house easily if they have to
They're just afraid. And when other people are afraid to jump into the market, that is precisely the time to buy.
Did anyone ever get famous for giving advice to "Buy high, sell low"? But that is exactly what so many of us are prone to do when it comes to real estate.
In 2006, red flags started to go up for me. Buyers were having to do crazy things to get a house, sometimes paying hundreds of thousands of dollars over an already inflated asking price. But they jumped in enthusiastically.
Today, in 2011, you can buy a house with an amazing interest rate, and usually for less than a deflated asking price.
Could prices go down again? Sure.
But in the entire history of our housing market, they've caught back up again and gone even higher.
So is it a good time to buy? Well, it's a whole lot better to buy now than it was in 2006. That's for sure!
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