Housing market, generally

Based upon my visit to open houses on the weekends, this is as good a buyers market as you will find for DC and the close-in suburbs. The bottom will never drop out of DC's market like it has with Miami and Las Vegas because of the glut of government jobs. I speculate that prices may begin to rise with the influx of folks working in the new administration.

I am afraid that glut of gov. jobs is about to end.

I would not touch RE right now. When everything fails and it will, RE market will finally collapse and government will be giving home loans with 0% interest to restart it.

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sales of new homes fell in October to the lowest point in nearly 18 years while the median price of a new home dropped to the lowest level since 2004.
The Commerce Department says new home sales decreased 5.3 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 433,000 homes, the lowest level since January 1991, another period when the country was undergoing a steep housing downturn.

The median price of a new home sold in October fell to $218,000, down 7 percent from a year ago. It was the lowest median sales price since September 2004."

2004 prices? If you think 2004 prices are good prices then buy it now. Me thinks RE will drop another 30-50% .

all markets are different. do a google search for any forums/blogs on housing in DC. SoCal is a much different story. but if you want a general flavor of the doom and gloom, check out irvinehousingblog.com. That's straight dose of reality check.

Maybe in a few markets. Look for someplace that had insane "appreciation" over the last 5-6 years. There, maybe.
Yes. The local market here is quite good. Our volume is off, but average sale price is actually up from '07.

Minneapolis is starting to show signs of improvement; October sales were up 6%, although prices were down, and fully 1/3 of all transactions were either short sales or bank-owned.

interest rates are bottoming out now... how much longer can they fall?

Bought a month ago. I think prices may keep declining somewhat. If global capitalism collapses sometime next year I'm sure things will really come down more.

Got a Citroen SM to match?

You'll see 4, 4-1/2% 30-year money pretty soon.

They absolutely will. I paid cash for my home last month baking on the rates dropping down in the 4's. When they hit the 4's then I will take out a small mortgage.

Take it for what its worth, but zillow.com estimates the price of my place has been declining for some time now, and hasn't hit the valley yet.

In a Obama administration with the Dems controlling Congress and the White House?

Don't know much about DC market, but I think Ambulance Chaser might be right.

And, its impossible for anyone to predict when the market will bottom out. Plus, if you find a place that you really love and want, it might not be available when housing market drops even more.

From what I've read and what I see, some markets are more insulated than others. Here where I have been looking in CT housing seems to be more anemic in pricing as opposed to rapidly declining and this parhaps has to do with CT having a low inventory to begin and no overinfusion of homes into the market like cities such as Miami or LV. You also see the towns that had overinflated home values suffer the most, a good deal of this country never had that problem. I'm not a real estate pro but I would expect declines to continue until people have money and feel confidence to jump back in the market. You have the people right now who don't want to buy because they don't want the prices to decline even further and then the people who don't buy because they can't afford it. I really believe 2009 is the time to buy, I just can't imagine all this lasting into 2010-2011. As far as rates go I've been reading that they are trying to get lending rates lower into the sub 5% range but they said there is difficulty in doing so as they've tried to lower rates a number of times this year and it really hasn't been able to go below say 5.3%. That is still historically super low. I think what you can be assured of is knowing that the market and housing will eventually rebound whether it's one year from now or more. Buying a house won't be a bad decision in the long term. I wish I had a ton of money laying around because in the next year I'd probably buy 3 or 4 home as vacation or rental properties.

Atlanta is flat, but I have not seen prices dropping significantly.

Maybe the better strategy would be to buy a house solely for the purpose of actually living in it, by looking around for a few months so you have a feel for what you can get for your money, and then find a house that fits your needs and is a fair price. Trying to "time the market" (ie, let greed get the better of you) is stupid.

With such an oversupply of homes in the US, and hundreds of thousands of people struggling to make their rent every month, I would not want to be a landlord. However it is the ideal time for someone looking to buy themselves a quality home with a more manageable mortgage.

I'm sure people will argue with this point of view, I see the stock market as a superior investment vehicle when compared to real estate.