PS,
All the points you make relate to the sellers distress rather than the buyer’s willingness to buy. I am looking at things from the buyer’s side which your comments ignored. The last 2 weeks I have been astounded at Open House attendance by people that are looking to buy. They are not buying but most have a price they are waiting for to be able to get the house they want and its not all that far off.
The indicator I am looking at and seeing anecdotally is that this looks like it’s starting to play out exactly as it happened but in reverse. I didnt see this trend before but have seen it recently with great regularity. If you look at appreciation graphs the huge gains happened at the end of the boom and not evenly throughout. I am seeing these huge gains that occurred between Late 2003 and Early 2004 evaporate very, very quickly. Once these gains evaporate there will be alot of folks that can once again afford the homes they want. Will the buy them? I don’t know. But I suspect the declines will be slower after a big initial drop. I think the median could easily be down 10% or more by late 2006/Early 2007 and down 15 to 20% by this time next year.
I could very easily be wrong but this is my instinct. I am not attached to being right. I could pay my mortgage working as a Wal Mart Greeter. I have learned how to create wealth in my career many ways. Real estate is but one of them. I currently have business opportunities in development that may lead me away from RE. I work in RE mostly because I enjoy it, I am able to help people by providing them better representation than I have see most of them recieve elsewhere and I can spend lots of time with my kids. If I stop enjoying it, I can and will do something else that would be far more lucrative. My life will go on without fear either way with adjustments to whatever comes down the pike.
