Nobody knows what effect the increased availability of the information will have on emerging trends. As time goes on the blogs like Piggington’s contribute tremendously to the ability of Joe Average to access and analyze the data for themselves.
How many people, prior to coming to this site, had the “feeling” that things weren’t right but no way to back that intuition up with data and analysis? Those people who choose to avail themselves of this information need never feel like they’re taking an uninformed risk ever again. They wont need to rely solely on their friends or their brokers for advice with respect to macro market conditions.
I think this is one of the factors contributing to why these prices are falling as fast as they are on the bottom end. When the second wave of ARM resets comes on next year I think it will contribute to the collapse of the upper end too.
However, this increased availability could prevent the pricing structure from significantly overcorrecting, too. If that happens then it might signify a trend for cycles with much smaller high-low extremes going forward.
It’s possible that the timing for your future purchases could depend more on prevailing mortgage interest rates than on sales prices because pricing will become more dependent on the financing than on NAR commercials on TV.
Another unknown is the impact of our changing demographics and exactly how many boomers will be in a financial position to retire in place. What will the employment options be for the younger workers going forward and how will those options affect their capacity to service their mortgages?
There are so many unknowns. On the surface I can see no reason to believe that the answers to any of these unknowns will turn out to favor having an itchy trigger finger on a purchase transaction. But there’s no way to really know the future before it gets here.
