Open House Picks: Six Months Later
Comment: 0-for-4 on the first batch of post-Lehman Open House Picks! Open House Picks 9/19/08 [Brownstoner] Previous Six Months Later Posts [Brownstoner]
Comment: 0-for-4 on the first batch of post-Lehman Open House Picks!
Open House Picks 9/19/08 [Brownstoner]
Previous Six Months Later Posts [Brownstoner]
1842 – The Sept 08 Lehman crash is not necessarily going to show things going off a cliff right away, since (as the bonus uproar shows), there was still plenty of cash sloshing about the system. It’s when that cash starts to dry up that prices will really be impacted. There is so much that’s changed and continuing to change in this new climate. I think of my own situation, where a year ago, I could have relied (if needed) on some family help with a downpayment (and I know many younger people in that situation). While I was working hard to find a place I could afford on my own, prices were so high that it seemed we might have to stretch and possibly ask for that family help. Now, not only is that family help out of the question due to their stock market losses, but I may have to help out my family with the proceeds from my previous RE sale. There were various articles in the past years that talked about this dynamic – the older generation helping out the younger one – but for many in the older generation, their portfolios have been obliterated.
Yes, many people are still employed but everyone I know is simply MUCH more prudent now, and prices which may have seemed palatable just a year or 6 months ago now border on the absurd. Plus, factors like public school weight a lot more prominently is people’s minds. So the idea that people will just send their kids to private school when they buy a house in a crummy school zone is yet another variable that won’t fly anymore, or at least much less often. We are indeed in a stalemate moment, with many sellers still in denial, but I don’t see anything coming on the economic horizon that will make buyers change their minds, so eventually (as is already starting to happen), the weakest sellers will cave and the comps, and prices, will reset to much lower levels.
DIBS, biggest sales are by definition actual transactions. I don’t see any logic to your post (and I’m not just saying that because you called me an asshole last night, which as I said is fine – you really just aren’t making sense). And no, the sky is not falling, just prices, something I believe even you agree with at this stage.
I say spot on all the time b/c I work with sooo many brits!
1842, you are right that it may be misleading to extrapolate too much from a report on 4 properties, but I think the trend is generally in line with what I said.
“Spot on” – Good question for the Safire “on language” column in Sunday NYT magazine.
Four houses that haven’t sold and the sky is falling. We’ll have last week’s biggest sales and 4 more will have gotten sold. Full stop.
When did Americans start staying “spot on”? And is it especially common online? I see it all the time now.
Lechacal is spot on.
But we’ve had numerous “biggest sales of the week” postings for contracts entered post-Lehman that seem to counter the implications of these 4 houses not selling yet. I think it is hard to extrapolate any true tredn from a few sales here or there over a short period of time…