"Alot of people will be in this boat in the next two years."
Oh, yes, and worse.
My wife and I are lookign to get a new house in a few years. I will be looking for repos. Truth hurts but, my wife and I live a 90% of our means. We save the rest, for months that get rain if you know what I mean.
I took a job briefly with a real estate developer here in Florida. My job was "IT Manager", but it involved a lot of making powerpoint presentations and updating sales materials that were used in his presentations to potential customers. This guy was using his "Re/Max" franchise name to lend credibility to his claims - he was flat-out promising people that the market was going to continue to be red-hot well into 2010 or beyond, all in an attempt to get them to purchase the condo properties that he is developing.
I knew it was time to get out pretty early, because I didn't want to be a part of that type of operation. I really knew I'd made the right decision when he signed a deal with the "Church" of Scientology to market a condo project they are developing. He brought the Scientology materials to our managers' meeting the next Monday and was encouraging us all to check it out. My reaction - "Buh-bye!"
There will be innumerable people in the next couple of years feeling hoodwinked by this guy. I have no doubt about that. The market simply cannot continue to rise at the rate that it was, and the slowdown is well underway now. Those poor people who were promised that their only cash outlay would be the 10% down payment (sometimes 5%) on a pre-build condo are going to find out the hard way that those condos are not going to be the easy sell that they were led to believe.