Developer · Garland, TX · Member since 2008 · 8k+ posts · 4k+ votes
2012 my seem like a long way off, but 28 months isn't that far away. This Business Week article is a couple months old and it predicts a couple more down years followed by a return to normalization. Of course it hedges it bet with the standard "all real estate is local."
Good points David. Value will be in the eye of the beholder, the assessor, the banker, the appraiser, the Realtor, the investor, the buyer and the seller and the guy at the coffe shop who will disagree..
I agree with David. Accountability. It is what it is. The players are changing. The winners will be the breed that succeed, not by preying on the weak, but those of us that build up the strong. United we stand, an old saying that has virtues of its own. Unite and build on the golden rule(s). Stealing is wrong, whether it is via a mortgage that you damxn well you could not afford as you hedged your bet against the sorry sack lender and his commissioned loan officer as you purchased your boat, hummer, etc., back to basics means, buy what you need and when you buy a home, let it be just that... a home. If you earn 7 bucks an hour at mc donalds, and a hungry loan officer says you can buy a home for 45 bucks an hour, just because you can flip it for 100 bucks an hour, doesn't mean you should do it, unless of course he has a gun to your head. Not saying that you are a theif because you did, and now you have a BMW that you did not work for and now you paid off all of your credit cards, because you did not make your house payment, and no housing expense at all, and you feel justified because, maybe you are just a HS graduated and Obama and Acorn will find a way for you to avoid tax and take advantage of Americans that actually work 60-80 hrs a week and never ripped off the system and...
Each will probably be worth 10-20k, in other words nothing. That's alright though. I bought them for nothing for the purpose of using them to create a "salary" to get me off full time work and freeing up my time.
Personally, disregarding any major event, I do not see how anything can improve with 10% unemployment and huge debts.
The unemployment rate will be the key to watch for a sustainable, not head fake, turn in house prices. More jobs, more taxes, less debt. No chance spending will decrease meaningfully in this economic environment.
So 2012, +-5% from where we are now waiting for the jobs to begin to show up.
Major event, then lower.