Despite Negative Headlines, People Are Still Buying Houses
Debra Gould
May 01, 2009
Furthermore, all the doom-and-gloom news about declining property values fails to mention how much more homes are still worth today than they were 10 or 15 years ago in most markets.
One seldom-mentioned statistic is that the decline in stock portfolios and home prices in 2008 only wiped out the gains in household net worth from the previous THREE years, according to the U.S. Federal Reserve. Listening to the news, you´d think we were back down to 1930s levels!
Over the long term, real estate is always a sound investment. The only people losing money in real estate (and in the stock market, for that matter) are those who bought at the height of the market and have to sell at a loss. Real estate moves in cycles, and prices will eventually rebound.
In fact, for anyone considering trading up to a more expensive home, this is the time to do it.
Here´s why: If the market goes up 10% and you have a $300,000 home, your home´s value will only go up by $30,000. On the other hand, if you have a $500,000 home, your home´s value will increase $50,000 over the same period. But you should only trade up to the $500,000 home if you can afford the $200,000 price difference.
That´s only one example of the many opportunities that still exist in real estate today, and an additional reason why homeowners and real estate investors who aren´t in financial trouble will continue to buy and sell homes.
With over 5.2 million houses projected to sell in the U.S. in 2009 alone, that´s a huge potential demand for home stagers. As you can see from this projected growth of 6.6%, the real estate market hasn´t come to a dead stop at all!
You don´t see much mention of this in the news media because bad news gets more attention than good news. Media outlets are profit-oriented corporations. Their mandate is to increase their audience so they can sell more advertising. They do this by keeping you anxiously glued to the latest ´crisis´.
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