There have been naysayers in the real estate market as long as there has been a real estate market, and 99.999% of the time, the naysayers are wrong.
I remember people looking at houses in my neighborhood eight years ago, scratching their head saying there's no way these houses were worth $300K, they were selling for $200K a couple of years ago. Guess what? They've only continued to go up, some up to almost $700K now. Guess what? They're NEVER going to be $200K again. What do you think the real worth is?
You're hoping for 1990's prices. Keep twidling your thumbs and waiting for the housing prices to come back to what you think is normal and you might be waiting for a good long while.
Read this, this is a well written piece that explains what I fail to articulate
As I understand it there have been large corrections in the markets especially at the end of the 70's. The current market is played out; I'm just trying to decide to sell now or later; If I sell high now I could by some piece of land once in foreclosure or 25% off- As things stand I hear that in some areas they are selling houses over 70,000 market value (compared to other similar houses in the same community) it is a mad rush-
I'm uncomfortable because it feels like this is an abnormal market, not just some cyclical boom.
My grandfather came to Phoenix in the 1920's, when it was a town of ten thousand people or so. He told me once of meeting a man selling undeveloped desert land ten miles out of town, no roads or utilities, for $50 per acre. My grandfather earned $40 per month at the time, and laughed in the man's face, saying nobody would ever possibly live out in that howling wilderness.
That place was Paradise Valley, where land can now sell for a million dollars an acre or more.
-ccm