By Mike Colpitts
The bottom of each real estate market in America won’t occur with much fanfare. In fact, few people will realize that it’s even happening when they do, and they’re usually only recognized after the bottom has already hit.
The search for the elusive bottom to any real estate market is akin to finding the proverbial needle in a hay stack. Once they’re fully realized, the elevator is usually on the way up and higher prices follow.
Bottoms to real estate markets are a lot like trying to determine when stocks in financial markets are at their lowest price. Veteran investors say it’s a fool’s game to try to find the bottom to make a buying decision because as you wait, study and calculate the tendency is to over analyze as the market makes its own moves and often leaves you in the lurch.
In these increasingly complicated financial times, troubled by the credit crunch finding a market’s elusive bottom is no easy task. But here are 10 signs to ponder on whether the bottom of your market is near:
| 1- | The inventory of listings is reducing as properties come off the market, especially those over priced places that have been sitting on the market rotting. Noticing fewer for sale signs in that neighborhood you’re interested in buying a home or condo in these days? |
| 2- | The Mass Media spurs interest with talk of a bottom. Newspapers and |
| television reporters speculate and ask the experts if a bottom is occurring | |
| like it’s a national real estate market trend when all markets have their | |
| own local bottoms and are scattered over time. | |
| 3- | Sales volume begins to pick up, slowly at first as pent up buyer demand results in more showings. |
| 4- | People are less fearful of the market. |
| 5- | People begin to talk about how much money there is to be made investing in real estate again. |
| 6- | Increasing telephone calls to realty offices on listings and for sale by |
| owners. | |
| 7- | The Fed finishes tinkering with interest rates at least for a while, trying to get a handle on how the markets are moving. |
| 8- | People commonly talk about the bottom occurring like it’s a thing of the past with increasing consumer confidence. |
| 9- | Prices finally seem to stop dropping. |
| 10- | Financing becomes easier to obtain. |
There aren’t hard and fast rules to insuring that your real estate market is at the bottom. All bottoms are different after all, but one thing’s sure. The bottom of markets have historically been for a much shorter duration than the top, which is one reason why most property owners are secure in their positions. Statistically, very few real estate buyers make their purchases at the bottom or the top. Most buy some where in between.