WHY I THINK THINGS ARE LOOKING UP!
1. We’ve really built nothing new (or nothing much) for five years. Inventories of new houses are way down and little is planned for the near future.
2. Millions who navigated a short sale and went into rental housing will be re-entering the market.
3. Many millions of ‘fence-sitters’ will flood the market when a tipping point of confidence and activity occurs.
4. Lenders are becoming increasingly rational, more predictable, more systematic. They are slowly becoming workable again.
5. Prices have stabilized in most markets and actually risen in some. Cue the trumpets! Buyers tend not to buy when prices are falling. They tend to return to the market when prices begin to rise.
6. Investor activity in the lower price ranges is fairly frantic, and has been for some time. Multiple offers and bidding wars are common. Investor’s always signal the bottom of the trough. They come out first – consumers follow.
I think 2012 is going to be a whole lot better than 2011, and I believe 2013 could be a break-out year.
Something else to consider is that household formation declines in a recession as families move in with each other – like college grads who are unemployed. As the economy improves household formation will increase.