Celmcl

Look at history. Look at what happened during the last real estate boom in California. Prices dropped up to 50%. Parts of Florida are facing the same fate now. The housing market is like the stock market. You don't buy at the top if you are smart. You wait until the bottom and then buy. Right now we are coming off an artificial real estate run-up unlike any other in history due to lax lending standards and low interest rates. Now the United States is experiencing a nationwide housing depreciation not seen since the great depression. If you look at the Case-Shiller index on house prices you will see that a lot of markets still have a ways to fall until they are inline with fundamentals. This puts you in a tough situation, since your livelihood depends on real estate. Could you shift your business focus to the sellers side rather than the buyers? Intelligent buyers are going to wait for the market to bottom and not risk losing 20%-50% of their money in the next few years. - Fri Aug 17 2007, 21:28