I attended a home-buying/home-selling seminar today. It was VERY informative and provided many good ideas.One of the charts the presenter discussed addressed the buyers who listen to the national media and think they’ll wait for the market to “bottom out”.
As I’ve mentioned here before, CENTRAL OHIO IS NOT A BUBBLE MARKET. We did not have the huge price increases in prior years so buyers shouldn’t expect prices to drop accordingly. Last month, I wrote on the average price by school district comparing the past 5 years. As that article shows, our price increases were very moderate. Although prices have softened somewhat in 2007, it’s not by great amounts. 
Today’s speaker acknowledged that buyers might tell us (Realtors®) that they want to wait until the market bottoms out. To this buyer, we should ask how they’ll know the market is at it’s bottom. The obvious answer is that the market has bottomed out when prices start to rise. DUH!
So by the time those buyers realize the market has turned … it’s too late. And of course, interest rates may change as well independent of what the home prices do.
Forbes Magazine has published the 10 Most Stable Markets in the U.S. The Columbus Ohio market is #3 with an average price change from 2006 to 2007 of only -1.2%. They also project a price increase from 2007 to 2008 of 3.49%. So Forbes data would suggest that we are at the bottom now for the next few months.
So … Buyers! … you can get low interest rates now … have lots of inventory to select from now … so don’t miss the market by waiting till 2008.
As the speaker said, he thinks there will be many buyers that look back on 2007 and wish they would have bought when the prices were low. Call me if you don’t want to be one of them.
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Elaine Reese
614-825-8860Real Living HER
2 responses so far ↓
Lola Audu // October 9, 2007 at 9:52 pm |
Elaine, here on the blog tour from Maureen’s post on Active Rain. Glad I stopped by to read. I like the look of your blog…nice graphics and engaging.
Your advise to buyers regarding the current market in the midwest is right on! Buy NOW before prices go up.
elainereese // October 9, 2007 at 10:14 pm |
Thanks for stopping by Lola. The tour has been fun but I’ve got to go back and visit more blogs.
We’ve had some suburbs who actually increased prices this year. Wish the National news would give us a break. California and Florida don’t “rule the world”.