Some tax credit lapse, of course. I can’t believe the record low rates haven’t lured more buyers to the table. Confidence is just soooooo low.
I’m staying out of the housing game. I don’t like renting, but don’t like gambling either.[/quote]
Buyers that were qualified and ready to be buy were lured by the tax credits. Interest rates aren’t that different in the past few months.
The low rates are causing a surge of refinancing… but not really drawing new buyers in…[/quote]
We’re totally seeing this trend. Things have slowed down dramatically. It’s the first time in a decade that we’ve seen rates come down this low (and this is the lowest) without a surge of buying. It’s what some of us have been warning about: they will get less and less of an effect with each time they try to artificially pull demand forward. This whole “housing stimulus” charade was foolish from the very beginning. Now, we’ve wasted trillions of (precious) dollars, and we’ll find that we’re going to be worse off in the long run than if they had left things alone (except for necessary programs to keep people employed while the credit bubble burst).
