brtlmj's Discussions

"That said, given current state of the housing market, you certainly don't need to be in a rush. As my Money Magazine colleague Amanda Gengler pointed out in our December cover story on the outlook for 2008, house prices are already down more than 4 percent from a year ago.And given the huge inventory of homes already for sale plus the ones likely to come into the market as more homeowners default on their mortgages and go into foreclosure, prices are forecast to tumble another 6 percent or so in 2008." Hard to disagree...

This hapens to be BAD news... nothing to be happy about. But, it may be the price for the excesses of the last few years.

"Nothing is a deal killer for the right price." Yep... anything can be offset by an appropriate price cut. But an evidence of an attempt to conceal serious defects WOULD be a deal-killer.

"Adjusted for inflation, some areas will NEVER see 2005 pricing again." They will. Real estate DOES appreciate. Less than one percent over inflation, but it does. So, it's only a matter of time.

"If average and median price don't count, how about average days on market? "How about repeat sales? A local version of the Case-Shiller index?

"And how do repeat sales do an adequate job of showing trends in markets with significant amounts of new construction? " They don't. Nothing else does. Nobody knows what a market value of something is until it sells.

"People do not like to borrow money to buy depreciating assets'' Not really. People buy cars, don't they? "Until potential buyers can plausibly believe prices will not fall further, home sales will continue to decline." I don't really care. When prices are sane again I'll buy and won't worry if they fall another 10% or not.

Judging by the open houses I went to - a lot. Maybe 50%. And a few "maybes" on top of that.

"Then the problem is purely psychological." No, it's purely financial. When you overpay, you lose. Heck, I could buy stock today paying twice the market price, and in thirty years I would come out "ahead".

"(but I would back it up with evidence)." What kind of evidence do you have in mind?