Market News
Real Time Market Q & A(Watch For Updates)
Q: There doesn’t seem to be an end in sight to the housing slump. By the time the market hits bottom, won’t housing be down and out for the count?
A: If the truth be told, housing has always been a very cyclical business. In the mid 1970s and the early 1980s and 1990s, housing production and sales dropped by more than 60 percent in a matter of months. During those cycles, we confronted and overcame many of the same problems we face today – large numbers of unsold homes, skeptical and reluctant consumers, tight credit markets and shortages of money for certain borrowers, declining home values, and prospective buyers who had difficulty selling their existing homes. The important thing to remember is that over time the market corrected and we rebounded to production and sales levels that beat or matched the records of the previous cycle. Remember, those who purchased homes in the early 1990s during the last big economic and housing downturn came out as big winners. The message here is that housing is a very tough and resilient industry.
Q: Hasn’t the subprime crisis cut off the flow of mortgage money for qualified borrowers?
A: If you believed the headlines or the endless drum beat about subprime lending on cable television news, you would think that the pot of mortgage money has dried up completely. Nonsense! The vast majority of home buyers are seeking conventional, conforming mortgages at or below $417,000. These loans are purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both federally chartered organizations. While underwriting standards may have been tightened for all loans, credit-worthy home buyers should have no problems in finding conventional, conforming mortgages at very attractive rates – well below 6 percent for fixed rate, 30-year loans. Mortgage money is available at a very attractive price for credit-worthy borrowers.
Q: In today’s housing environment, isn’t the smart move to keep waiting for prices to fall even further before venturing into the housing market?
A: The current housing price correction is helping to restore affordability. In parts of the country where the housing boom was not as strong, price declines have been marginal, and there have even been a few exceptional areas where prices have remained on the rise. The bottom line for most existing home owners is that their homes will be worth significantly more than they paid for them once the market begins to recover – a process that is expected to begin later this year. The repercussion for prospective buyers is that the market has provided some breathing room from the sky-high prices prevailing a year or two ago.
