Real Estate Pros Still Waiting for the Recovery
According to economists, The Great Recession started in 2007 and ended in 2009, though well over two years later people around the world are still suffering from the aftermath. Curiously, retail receipts for the most recent holiday shopping season seem to be the most robust in all of three years, even as the housing market keeps tumbling in value. Economists find these two indicators, home prices and retail receipts, to be really useful indicators of the true state of the economy, so taken together these facts point to continuing uncertainty.
Companies are actually awash in record profits, but so far are not hiring. Interest rates are incredibly low but credit lines remain tight. That’s because people don’t believe the recession’s really over But it’s a vicious cycle, since nobody wants to take those crucial first steps that somebody will have to eventually – a great many somebodys, actually.
Only twenty-one thousand homes were sold nationwide this past November, a record low for just one month. Yet bargains abound – foreclosure sales, short sales, auction sales vie with all the deep discounts being offered throughout the industry, even in traditionally hot property markets such as the New York-New Jesery-Connecticut Tri-State Area.
Not even industry insiders like Isaac Toussie are disturbed by, with prices continuing to decline!
The situation is much, much worse in cities such as Cleveland, Minneapolis, and even Dallas, darlings of the 1990s.
No matter what happens, the only way things can get better is if the jobs outlook improves dramatically. But without real estate improving first, setting off a chain reaction of new purchases for major items, where will the jobs come from?
Something’s gotta give.