Great news fence sitters! (Phoenix: bank owned, real estate, foreclosures)

[bongofury]

Great news Arizona fence sitters! The latest data suggests we have only about three to four more years of foreclosures flooding our housing markets with further price drops and falling equity before we BEGIN stabilizing. Don't buy yet!

[Ritchie_az]

I think it depends on where in the market one is looking. For example, in Phoenix metro, I believe that the very bottom of the market hit rock bottom over a year ago. But the top is certainly still falling. Maybe the middle, too.
But it also depends on how long one intends to own the home. I think good advice is to not buy if one is planning to live in the home for less than five years. Five-to-seven years may be iffy. But if one is planning to live in a home for eight or more years, then by all means it's an excellent time to buy.

[bongofury]

Not bad advice. The buy and live in for five years and sell thing failed for me (and I bought several years before the bubble, but of course housing prices in many regions had been getting unrealistic well before the bubble). I'm not sure eight years is enough time to recover to neutral equity for many who bought in the bubble. Americans are known as a people who like to move around, but the economy and housing market (in most areas) has really put the brakes on that. Doesn't take much imagination to guess the fallout for businesses that depend heavily on people moving, people buying and selling real estate. As I see it, the only pronouncements more suspicious than those coming from the National Real Estate Association are the numbers from our government about the Consumer Price Index and the unemployment numbers. OK, also the positive projections from investment and retirement portfolio managers for their clients.

[amatrine]

Well they dumped a BUNCH in our town last week. Last month 38 properties on trulia, this month 238! Most bank owned.