Well it looks like the house prices are starting to rise again, at least where I live, and it is much harder to find a decent home at an affordable price. We have been at this for months now and are struggling to find one in our range. What is the outlook like where you live?
As I mentioned in another thread, I Live in the Houston area and the economy here is booming, and the need for housing is exploding. Demand is very high and with interest rates so low, the housing prices have sky rocketed. I bet we have had a range of 20-40% increase in the price of homes in just 8 months!!
My brother-in-law is here in the Philippines for a vacation. He said that they are now planning to buy a house and leave their apartment in California which they rent for $1,200 per month. His idea of a house is one that they can afford the down payment so the installment wouldn't be huge. But with the present market condition that real estate prices are increasing, I guess it is not the right time to buy.
In the UK, well, certain parts of it, the housing market is still slowly rising and that doesn't seem to be slowing down. It's getting increasingly harder for first time buyers to get their foot on the ladder with the deposits needed rising also.
I think real estate prices are high in just about every place right now. Where I live, the price of a square meter is already very expensive and that still doesn't include any house built on it. So add the price of the lot plus the amount you would need to spend in building a house are very high. The most affordable type of residence here right now are the continuously increasing condominium units but they are relatively small for people with families.
I reckon we're going to see big shifts in growth rates in regional property prices, based on what's driven your local economy. For example, I can think of a lot of places that have been very sensitive to oil and commodity prices, which helped to drive booms in property prices. And living in Hong Kong, I'm already seeing signs of a slowdown thanks to a weaker Chinese economy.
All the money the fed has pumped into the economy is going to go away eventually and the prices will go down. You can't have forever rising housing costs because at one point the population would simply not afford to live anywhere.
I think the housing in this area is dependent on whether you are on the lake or not. The houses that are on the lake are selling well, but those of us who just have lake access can't usually sell their homes as readily. The region as a whole seems to be doing fairly well in terms of home sales.
I assume the lake there is clean and desirable for fishing maybe. Here we have lakes that are dirty with murky waters. There was a time we were invited to a festivity near a lake and the atmosphere was unpleasant because the lake was emitting a bad odor due to dirt and silt. However, real estate in that area still command a high price because the lake can be a source of livelihood - illegal fish pens abound.
Here in Arizona property prices are starting to rise, but there are still a lot of empty homes on the market. The growth has been slow but things are definitely on the rise. Overall salaries and business is also growing here at a modest rate, so it makes sense the real estate market is following on at a similar pace.
