Korene's Blog

Don’t let the media influence your real estate decisions! If you have questions, ask a professional realtor or mortgage banker!

Let us just get one thing straight: the media has been a bit "over-dramatic" about the current real estate market!

CLEARLY our market is not as robust as it was 3 or 4 years back, but if you compare the market to the market in the late 70s and early 80s even the FHA/VA foreclosures bubble in the 90s our current situation is not a "sky is falling" scenario either unless we head for the hills and start living in a cave.

Presently, our problem is that we have to deal with over credit extension bringing about too many homes on the market, with timidity on the part of buyers. In the 70s/80s buyers were dealing with 17%-20% interest rates. Buyers could not afford the cost of borrowing money. Our interest rates today are very attractive----in fact we are seeing 30-year fixed loans at aroung 5.00% now----and with a large supply of inventory which actually makes for an ideal buying environment for consumers.

But, thanks to the news media, it doesn’t matter if it is an ideal time to purchase a home----buyers watch the news and hear all the doom and gloom and are to afraid to start looking!

Eureka is no exception; our market in 2007 has outperformed 2006 in 6 out of 11 months:                

	2006	2007
January	15	24
February	19	22
March	50	43
April	40	33
May	48	59
June	67	54
July	43	40
August	42	38
September	17	37
October	25	30
November	29	33

If you are a buyer who plans on actually living in the home for the next 5-10 years then it is a great time to buy. Most of the homes are going for less then the rebuild cost and if the market has not bottomed out as of yet, at least you are in a position to where you can see your home appreciate in value again and it is a home that you really wanted.