09 Jan 08 
Real Estate in 2008
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to New Homes Section's Blog. Thanks for visiting!
It’s a new year and several experts have already released their predictions of what may come of the real estate market in 2008. After reading several predictions, opinions and statistics there is one thing that almost everyone agrees on… there will be more foreclosures in ’08.
After 2007, with an unbelievable 1.39 million foreclosures, it’s hard to believe that 2008 could be any worse, but according to Moody’s Economy.com we could face as many as 1.67 million foreclosures. It’s easy to see that- that’s a huge increase, approximately 280,000 more foreclosures. An article by Harold Brubaker of Philly.com states that the average amount of foreclosures annually for the period 2000-2006 was 872,764. In 2008, it looks like we will experience a little more than a 52% increase over the 7 year average beginning in 2000 and ending in 2006.
What’s this mean for the national real estate market? In short, more economic instability, a greater supply of homes, and a decrease in the price of homes throughout much of the United States. For those of us that bought homes over the past few years we are looking at a greater loss on our investment. The little good news is that, on a national basis, our real estate was overpriced and a decrease in home prices will make homes more affordable for many renters and first time home buyers.
There are some experts stating that the market will bottom out in the next 6 months and others speculate that this won’t happen until 2009 or later. Regardless of who’s right and wrong it’s important to our overall economy that we continue to buy homes when we need and can afford them. Waiting until the market bottoms out will just make things worse and prolong the current real estate dilemma.
Pay attention to your local market – real estate is, and always has been local. Don’t read too much into what experts say – they couldn’t predict the exact date of the real estate bust and it’s likely that they can’t predict when things will get better.
Tags: economic stability, economy, foreclosures, harold brubaker of philly, market trends, national real estate, Real Estate, real estate market
Reader's Comments
Leave a Comment
How was your New Year? I really hope that our economy will not have to wait till 2009 to see an up swing in the Real Estate market.
Thank you for addressing the fact that real estate is local. Sure, the “national” housing market is feeling a bit rough, but the press rarely ever talks about healthy markets.
I’m afraid that may be right. I can definitely see ‘08 being a tougher year real estate wise for us in Utah…
Time to put your short sale hats on and start digging!
Some interesting stuff there, and yes predictions on 2008 and current market has been very unstable particularly for the US , and perhaps some areas in Australia has become very stabilised, but still very strong in most areas in Australia. Parts of Asia are still also quite reasonable and trends are looking better.