It’s Only Temporary
Chief economist for the NAR, David Lereah, recently told a gathering of about 400 real estate agents in Saratoga Springs that the downturn in the housing market was necessary and would be temporary for the most part. He takes the position that the current downturn was a way to bring equilibrium back to a residential real estate market that had been heavily favoring sellers.
If the Federal Reserve does not starting raising interest rates again, Lereah predicts a rebound in the next three to six months in most parts of the country. However, some areas in the South and West will take longer to recover because the boom of the past five years was more dramatic. For example, the median price for a single-family house in San Francisco was $740,000. The argument is that this type of pricing will take a lot longer to adjust to realistic levels when compared to a Albany-area home where the median price for a single-family home was $189,900.