Real Estate market-your thoughts? Here's Greenspans...

I do real-estate appraisal so I'm always getting paid whether shit is cheap or not.

When property is cheap people buy and need a home appraisal for the loan.

When property is expensive, interest goes up and people refinance - and then need another appraisal....

overheated right now

As long as hurricanes keep coming property will keep going up in value.

heh ok. what is you are in california? wouldn't earthquakes rock the market here?

In my opinion the market isnt like it was in the 80's and 90's and there is not one big bublle but lots of little ones that are very fragile. The key is to get out of those fragile ones soon and find better prospects. Investers beware but home owners will be ok in the long run. Even in California. The market wont crash but it will hurt many investors who dont know what they are doing.

Japan and California have one the highest earth quake risks in the world yet the market is booming in both places.
However both are very fragile bubble markets. But not because of earth quakes.

residential real estate is tied closely to the cost of borrowing (interest rates) and true demand (indicated by areas of increasing population vs declining population).

in coastal markets (notably california) it is also driven up by foreign investment, climate, and value of the dollar vs foreign currency.

the market is always in a state of correction, and always will be unless you have rent control which artificially deflates values of investment property.

true values will begin to soften because demand will begin to soften right about now. prime just went up a quarter point this past week, we're coming into fall so families now have the kids settled in schools and are less apt to move. new home starts are beginning to decline in most areas of the usa.

but a couple things will prevent a precipitous decline in prices over the next 18 months---IMO we will see a fairly large inflationary trend due to foreign conflicts, high energy cost, trade deficit, and bush's no tax plan. this will cause the treasury to print money like crazy to pay the bills---and because of inflationary pressures in the coming years people that are buying now still won't get hurt because they will be paying off loans with inflated dollars.

so get in now if you can, but be careful with short term ARMs.

nice evaluation hon, thanks for the post

I can't see anything going to shit in general within the next year. It also also depends where your market is. Some places are already dead while others are completely on fire. I can't complain, I purchased 2 houses in Naples, Florida about two years ago for about an average of about $245,000 each. I sold the smaller one with no pool in July for $495,000 and I'm thinking about putting the other one on the market in January after I leave there.