[quote=paramount][quote=sdrealtor]Just to clarify eavesdropper is in DC not San Diego. We have a very active RE market here, far more active than most places. There is huge demand here for well priced homes in any market, good or bad. That just isnt true in most markets across the US and I suspect DC might be one of those.[/quote]
I’d say the RE market in the DC area is “healthy” compared to most areas of the country including California – for one thing the unemployment rate in the DC area is among the lowest in the country.
The DC area is basically immune to recessions – that’s a dirty little beltway secret that’s not such a secret anymore.
Of course that low unemployment rate comes at the expense of the rest of the country since the vast majority of employment in the DC region is in the form of gov’t workers and beltway bandits.
That being said, I doubt there is a ‘huge’ demand even in the DC area. Will these realtor’s ever stop with the BS?[/quote]
Paramount, I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say that the DC area is recession-proof, even though there’s no question that there is one stable source of employment in the government. But there are a lot of residents in this region that aren’t government employees. A huge service industry, along with high-end retail, flourished in this region due to the presence of well-paid govt. employees, and there’s clear evidence that the recession is hurting them. And the beltway bandits are definitely feeling the pain. IMHO, before this recession ends, there will be layoffs of government employees, or, at the very least, a significant revision of their salary levels, PTO, and benefits. In all likelihood, there will be a lot more outsourcing of positions that were traditionally in-house (thus, putting an end to the pain of the beltway bandits, but not the people they hire. Think Walmart).
As for the RE market here, after a very slow 18 months, the market for lower-end “starter” homes ($100K-$300K) is picking up quite a bit, but not much else (in a few “inside the beltway” areas, starter homes are a little higher in price). There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of actual money in this region – essentially, the “robust economy” I kept hearing about from 2002 thru 2006 was being fueled by high-end retail shopping, and purchases of luxury automobiles and second homes in many of our waterfront communities and nearby ski resorts (just like in several other areas of the country). If you have a home to sell that’s above $450K, you have to wait for the move-up buyer to sell their home first. The problem is that many of the move-up buyers can’t sell for a price that is even remotely competitive because they’ve stripped all the equity (and I’m talking 2004 or 2005 equity here) from their properties. So the same thing is happening here, just later than California, which is why I keep my eye on what’s happening in that part of the country.
The good news is that, if you were prudent back in 2002 or 2003, and rented instead of bought, you can now purchase a very nicely-appointed 3000 sf Chesapeake Bay-side house with fabulous views for $700K instead of the $1.5 mil it would have cost in 2006. And the prices are still going down, down, down.
