Flu your point echos my thoughts, scaredycat yours does as well but I didn’t expand in my post. Uncertainty of employment and loss of assets (the loss of assets part was not stated) will absolutely affect sales and even current escrows. No doubt about it and yes I am holding my breathe on these two current escrows.
I don’t see the overall tightness in the credit markets affecting buyers with strong credit backgrounds and a decent downpayment, (yet) however the physical and psychological effects will be substantial. The good news for possible homebuyers is that the catalyst I have been talking about looks like it is here and it will (unfortunately) be the majestic unemployment cycle we are about to witness.
Those shouting bring it on, well it is on my friends. I can definitely see the engineering firm I work for cutting resources in the near future and we had a 5% workforce reduction yesterday. I am not so sure that other mainstream employment sectors will go unscathed either. This would include state and municipal jobs, education from public schools to state colleges and universities… pretty much everything across the board.
I have always wanted housing to become affordable for myself but I am very leery of what the future holds.
I pretty much laugh at those who say bring it on because what could happen will affect everyone. I know of some good people out of work. They didn’t overspend, they didn’t speculate, but they are still out of work. It will happen to more people as well.
Those who think they are untouchable usually are those who will fall the hardest if they do lose thier job.
