Housing Recovery - When?

There is a great deal of speculation as to when we will see a sustained and genuine recovery of real estate in the United States. Depending on who you talk to you will get a wide variety of opinions on the subject. Nearly all agree that the job market needs a substantial and sustainable jolt to truly spur any serious and long term recovery and with that will hopefully come a healthy and robust real estate market. I think we have a couple of choices; we can wait and see or we can plan and do. I prefer the later and I hope you do as well.

Here is an interesting portion of an article that was published in Time Magazine back in 1992 which stated; “The US economy remains almost comatose. The slump already ranks as the longest period of sustained weakness since the Depression. The economy is staggering under many ‘structural’ burdens, as opposed to familiar cyclical problems. The structural faults represent once in a lifetime dislocations that will take years to work out. Among them: the job drought, the debt hangover, the banking collapse, the real estate depression, the health care cost explosion, and the runaway federal deficit”

It’s a little scary, but this picture of the state of the economy in 1992 mirrors what we are experiencing today in a lot of ways. The thing that I want to point out is that the years following 1992 witnessed an enormous amount of growth and opportunities in the economy, stock market and in housing. I would agree that history often repeats itself (sometimes over and over) and perhaps we should be looking ahead to a better future with some of the opportunities in the present. There are some good long term buying opportunities in today’s real estate market. You will find it more often than not, that the best investors buy during the most pessimistic times.

I hope this provides you with a little different perspective and a better hope for the future as we plan and do rather than wait and see. If you or someone you know have questions about real estate or financing, please call me and if I don’t have the answer I will steer you to someone who does. I am here to help.

Best regards,

Mike Southwick