A Little Good News About Richmond Area Real Estate?

A Little Good News About Richmond Area Real Estate?

It seems there's nothing but bad news for the housing market every day: More mortgage resets are ahead in the next year, lenders are tightening standards and homes continue to pour onto the market.  All point to home values continuing to move lower in the near future.  There are plenty of statistics to warrant a gloomy outlook.

The National Association of Realtors says existing single-family home sales dropped 8.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.38 million in September, compared to a pace of 4.79 million in August.  That rate is 19.8 percent below the 5.46 million-unit pace from September a year ago.  What's more, the median existing single-family home price was $210,200 in September, down 4.9 percent from the same time last year.

But there are also some encouraging signs.  Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors (NAR) believes home values may start recovering next year because significant demand has been accumulating.  He says prices actually continue to trend upward in the Northeast, Midwest, throughout the condo sector and in areas that are not dependent on jumbo loans.

Moody's Economy.com economist Patrick McPherron isn't so confident about a fast housing recovery and anticipates the market staying down at least through 2008.  He says that a weakening in the economy and financial markets, combined with higher guidelines for mortgage lending, will drive down demand.

It all seems to depend on who you talk to, or listen to, as to just how bad the country's real estate markets really are.

What do you think?  Do you think things are beginning to show signs of turning around?  Or do you think we'd all be advised to hunker down for the long haul?  We'd love to hear your comments by using the "Comment" link below.  Your name and email address are required to post your comment, but know we respect your privacy and your email address will NOT BE PUBLISHED here for anyone else to see or harvest.. so go ahead and tell us what you think.