Key Information

I found an article yesterday in USA Today quoting Warren Buffett. Buffett has been correct enough so that I wouldn’t mind having him as my financial planner. And he knows real estate.
This is what he has to say:

“Within a year or so, residential housing problems should largely be behind us,” Buffett wrote Saturday in his annual letter to the shareholders of his Berkshire Hathaway. “Prices will remain far below ‘bubble’ levels, of course, but for every seller or lender hurt by this there will be a buyer who benefits. Indeed, many families that couldn’t afford to buy an appropriate home a few years ago now find it well within their means.”

You can read the entire article by clicking on the text. This is good news for ALL of us, if Buffett is even close to his timeline. Many of us are trying to hold out on selling until the market is a little favorable, and that time is coming sooner than some analysts have speculated.

If you want my take on what this means for you, please email me at gerry@realtyman.com or call 978-537-6401 x24. Or we can chat on Facebook- friend me.

making the right move financially

From Realtor.com:

Regionally, existing-home sales in the Northeast dropped 19.5 percent to an annual level of 910,000 in December but are 21.3 percent above a year ago. The median price in the Northeast was $241,700, up 3.2 percent from December 2008.

The National Association of Realtors said in the same article that they expected a more balanced inventory with lower priced homes- of which, nationally, there are too few for sale- to help lead us out of this housing slump. Also mentioned was that “Distressed homes, which accounted for 32 percent of sales last month, continue to downwardly distort the median price because they generally sell at a discount relative to traditional homes in the same area.”

We have to keep in mind that unemployment is still very high, and this will impede any recovery. If you are buying, or selling a home and buying, and have good credit- there is no time like the present and no sense in waiting out a market that will not have recovered in 3 or 6 months. Also to note (from same article):

According to Freddie Mac, the national average commitment rate for a 30-year, conventional, fixed-rate mortgage rose to 4.93 percent in December from 4.88 percent in November; the rate was 5.29 percent in December 2008.

Every time the mortgage interest rates go up, house payments increase. We may have hit the lowest rates and are creeping back up. All things to keep in mind when trying to decide when to buy, or how to price your home when you are listing it.

Questions about this report and what it means to you personally? Call Gerry at 978-534-6401 x.24.