Do you guys think housing prices would drop lower? (6%, investments, mortgage rates)

[Brandon Hoffman]

It's all local but we had an increase in transactions from 2011-2012 and this year looks like it will be another increase from what I've seen so far. I suspect our prices are about to start creeping upwards, maybe 1-3% a year. We won't see any big spikes though as weren't a bubble market and won't be in the foreseeable future.

[jerseygal4u]

South Jersey is hard to predict.
If housing in North Jersey has hit rock bottom,it didn't go down enough.

[mkarch]

At this point the number of homes for sale would need to double or tripple to swing back heavily in buyers favor. I don't see that happening, especially not in established neighborhoods with no available land.

[NinaN]

We hit bottom a year ago. Prices are expected to go up between 6-10% this year. It's local, but sounds like the story pretty much everywhere. Interest rates are rising, but still historically low.

[Ultrarunner]

About a year ago it was at the bottom... quite a rebound from then to now in the SF Bay Area locations I'm familiar with.

So many variables.

Population Growth/Demand, interest rates, availability to borrow, natural disasters... etc.

I had been seeing quality homes selling below the cost to duplicate... building materials tend to get more expensive, building requirements more complex plus the cost of bringing a home to market with permits and all the other infrastructure costs... don't really see how homes would be much less in the future barring some disaster or population drop.

[stan4]

It's back to a seller's market here.

[Huckleberry3911948]

the housing is in inflation, it will be followed by deflation. this admin is feeling its oats right 2nd term victory, now but is about to deal with some very serious economic slowdown issues. the basic principle being u cant debt your way out of debt.

[trickymost]

Surprised there are a few key details being overlooked in this thread, which I've stated before and will re-iterate.

Prices can still fall in inflation adjusted dollars, but are probably not going to fall much further in real dollars. Europe and Japan have publicly announced plans for QE-Infinity to combat deflationary pressures in everything except hard assets, and there is a war of competitive currency devaluation working at full steam.

Your average joe in the US has wised up to the fact their savings and investments are no more safe in stocks/bonds than it is in hard assets, of which real estate is the most accessible. The demand should not abate, even if rates rise, unemployment ticks up, and Congress limits or takes away the mortgage interest tax deduction.

You see the above on the high and the low end; guess what all those newly minted tech millionaires in SF are doing? They're cashing out their stock and buying homes in cash. They're doing so on the advice of the billionaires they know. Billionaires are buying everything they can eat, grow, move or collect around the world and dumping paper wealth, be in stock or currency to us average folks.

On the other side of the spectrum - I can't find a decent contractor to do a smaller (10k) home improvement, because most of those worth hiring are buying properties, mainly to rent but a few to flip.

Finally, the boomers are starting to hit retirement in droves, and they are cashing out their stocks, bonds and their homes. There is a lot of inventory which should hit the market soon, but it may not be enough to soak up demand from a growing population here in the US. Hard to say, but it is likely to keep any rabid price appreciation in check. Of course, that's just speculation. 2013 will tell us a lot.

So bottom line is what it has been for at least a year. If you want a house, can afford it, have job security, and want to buy in a desirable area, just jump in. Worst case, RE declines but it will still outperform the stock and bond market over the next 2-3 years, and most certainly over the next 5-10 years.

[aneftp]

I live in the Orlando area. Very weird market. Very low inventory.

On one hand if reports are true 80% of sales pending in November 2012 are distress properties (67% short sales and like 12% REO). So only about 20% of sales were traditional sales.

But prices are up 12% from last year. I had a breakdown where it said most of home price gains were from the lower end of the market (below 200K homes). The more expensive homes haven't seen any price gains or a few percentage drops give or take.

What I am guessing is tons of investor activity scooping up as many low end homes (those less than 150K) as they can in term of distress properties. However, those low end distress properties are getting harder and harder to find. But the higher end (those above 500k) are still moving very slowly.

[yousah]

I'm an appraiser in the Chicagoland market and we still have some areas with decreasing prices while other areas are stable. We've seen very little increase in values. Some people get a little confused in our area because there are fewer foreclosures and distressed sales occuring. This has artificially raised the median sales price in some areas where there is no measurable market appreciation. It's just that there are fewer sales of lower priced houses brought into the calculations.

Anyway, it's pretty easy to look at some market data to see what your particular market is doing. Long before you see increasing values you'll start to see more market activity, shorter marketing times, higher list to sales price ratios, and a shortgage of inventory. Once these factors start correlating with each other then you'll see the subsequent higher values.