This 50% off thing is funny. Do you people rush into the jewelry store waving your credit card every time you see the 50% off sign?
50% off gets us to what 2001-2002? 2002 was a good economy, houses had been going up for years, it was in no way a bottom from which the bubble started. 2002 was the last year of regular, almost sane price increases in RE, then the bubble took over and people gladly paid twice what a house sold for in 2001-2002.
So is 50% a good deal? Is the shape of the economy as rosy as it was in 2002?
Just as everyone now knows that the jewelry store’s regular price is actually the 50% off price, 2001-2002 pricing will be seen as the real price, and the point at which real discounts begin.
Look at Japan; people over there hung on year after year thinking the market would come back and now hundreds of thousands have paid 20 years on a house STILL worth 1/2 what they paid. And things are not finally getting better over there; rather they are sinking back into a financial black hole.
The market needs knife catchers and it will find them. The Gov. is orchestrating your finger amputation perfectly with new housing programs every 3 months, relaxed mark-to-market, TARP funding, etc. The banks in turn hide the inventory, stall foreclosures and create a frenzied bidding environment on any house they put on the market in the magical (mythical) 50% off range.
Jobs disappear, stores close, 401ks become 201ks, pensions evaporate in BK courts and yet prices that doubled in the biggest bubble in history, then coming back down to where they started, are considered 50% off deals????
A realtor skilled in digit re-attachment could probably make a killing offering a 2-for-1 service.
