www.realestateabc.com/insights/doomandgloom.htm
Location, condition, marketing, the market, and the price. If you have a great location and your home is in good condition, you probably know it. Your agent shows you their marketing efforts, at least the stuff that is visible. Obviously, the market must be slowing because it can't be the price! Flipping Homes In the long run, houses are great investments. Those who buy for the pur pose of "flipping" a home to make an immediate bundle of cash? Well, it is like playing a game and not obeying the rules. But for those investors playing a short-term game who don't have enough c ash to switch to the long-term game and play by the rules, they can get burned. First a pause in the market while everyone gets their breath and the desp erate few start to panic, then... they aren't closin g They have a drawer full of nothing but paper. Then, a return to normalcy, at least for several months. Fewer multiple bids when a house is fresh on the market. By the time we get to year-en d, maybe a slight drop in prices. it won't be a problem except those aspirations for ever-escalating prices and immediate sales will have to be scaled ba ck to reality. Your price will be more in line with traditional price growth, not craziness. You see, most people have lived in their home for awhile. If their price isn't going up as quickly as they thought it w as going to, it isn't THAT big a deal. The house they are buying isn't going up as fast, either. They are moving f or a new job, their house is so leveraged they cannot afford it anymore, or maybe they lost a job and don't have any saving. Prices would decline maybe twelve to fifteen percent over several years. There is ALWAYS a huge jump in median prices in the middle of the year if you compare them to sales at the end of the year. Families have bigger houses, more rooms, larger square footage. The median price average in July jumps like crazy when compared to Decemb er because you're comparing bigger houses to smaller houses. Prices are only up 14% over last year when compared to the same size hous es. The point is that all those people on the news who want to scare you with dire predictions of your house prices going "splat" can do it very easi ly with statistics.
There was more appreciation in the seventies than there has been in the l ast several years. Still, expect slower longer time in the future and fewer crazy "flipping" investors. The market can slow down suddenly, though not in the way a "bubble" bursts. copyright July 2005 by RealEstate ABC All rights reserved.
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