I’ve been watching silver for the last 2-3 weeks. Its been gradually dropping the whole time. I was wondering about that. You are saying it is caused by the dollar being pumped up from europeans buying up dollars, right? And when the dollar gets pumped up, the value of PMs relative to dollars drops.
I’m being told that the value of commercial realestate in my area is just now hitting bottom and starting to make its initial upward trend...but that residential real estate has not yet hit bottom but will in a year or 3.
But what scares me is job losses. If we start seeing a spike in job losses, there’s going to be more foreclosures, more government deficit, more destruction of the value of the dollar, more businesses closing down, more bank bailouts, and any recovery in real estate will be destroyed. Local and state governments will be going broke and trying to scrounge up every last tax dollar they can...which means higher property taxes...which means more people not being able to afford their homes.
I don’t think we are anywhere near a bottom, timewise. Also, a friend of mine in Seattle owns a lot of commercial real estate. He doesn’t even bother looking in Seattle any more because people want far more than what it’s worth.
Thing about commercial is that owners simply will not sell if the price is too low. They’ll walk away first. So the property just doesn’t sell, except when a non-investor just plain needs it for his business. But there are not a lot of them around.
There is an old saying regarding when to buy: Don’t try to catch a falling knife.
Fact is, the market sucks, and any increase in interest rates would cause epic collapse simply because people buy a monthly payment, and that is composed basically of principle and interest. Higher interest rates would have a negative affect on real estate prices. So you can figure rates will remain low a LONG time. But if you see both rates and prices go up, it’s time to buy.