But the economy brings up other factors I have not come across in your conversations: rising inflation and interest rates. Here is where I make the arguement that buying now is in your best interest whether it is a home or long term investment.
You may have read the comments in this thread, but you obviously haven’t been following this blog for very long or you’d know that we’ve discussed the trade-off between rising interest rates and prices on several occasions.
I’ll spare you the long explanation and give you the 2-minute version instead:
1. The prices will wind up being very closely tied to the rental market before this is all over. That means that if the market rent for a house is $2,000/month, the mortgage/property tax payments at the bottom will be close, and in fact could possibly drop a touch lower.
2. This will (probably) happen regardless of what the interest rates are. If they stay below 7% that indicates to a price for that house of about $315,000, assuming a 10% down payment. If the interest rates rise to 12% that indicates to a price of about $200,000. In essence, the impact of financing will contribute to the pricing, just like it did when prices were increasing.
3. We’ve already figured out that it’s better for most people to buy at the low price/high interest scenario as opposed to the high price/low interest scenario. For one thing, with a high interest loan there is a chance that the mortgage interest rates will eventually come down, affording you the opportunity to refi at the lower rate and reduce your payment. For another, there are tax deductions for mortgage interest payments.
Nothing is certain and it is possible that Martians will come to Earth and share their secret to Warp Drive and transporter technology, thereby jump starting the real estate markets. But short of a miracle there’s no logical reason why these markets won’t return to the long term trendline, which for the PQ area is a long ways off yet.
If you’re happy with your purchase then by all means enjoy it. Go forth and be happy. However, I suggest you avoid reading this blog or the newspapers or any other source of information about SD real estate in the future because all it will do is invoke feelings of buyer remorse. We gave this same advice to one of our regulars last year and they ignored it – that turned out the be a bad decision for them.
FYI, the foreclosure rate hasn’t peaked yet and probably won’t peak prior to the end of this year. The second wave or resets from the Option ARMs doesn’t even start until next year and that’s the one that will be the knockout punch for CV, PQ, 4S and other “nice” neighborhoods in the region that relied on them. You ain’t seen nothing yet.
