While countless experts have officially called a real estate recovery is underway and the hard numbers back it, there are still the occasional pessimistic pieces in the media trying to cast a cloud over it. Why?
1. Newspapers Desperately Need to Be Sold
The billion dollar printed news industry is suffering massive declines and losses and even online attempts to hold onto income are facing serious competition. This means the media must find sensational headlines in order to sell papers, stay in business and protect the bonuses of executives, whether they are accurate or not and good news has never been their favorite flavor.
2. Too many People Profit from Fear
Fear as to what will happen next keeps people reading the paper, but it also feeds a variety of professionals and companies such as bankruptcy attorneys and foreclosure rescue firms with fat paychecks. They pay big bucks for great writers to spin stories in their favor every week.
3. Out of Touch & In the Spotlight
Of course with as easy as it is to get into the news today many do it to help them stand out and further their own professional careers, while others are just out of touch and rely on flawed data and indices to predict housing market futures.
So what’s the Real Deal?
While local real estate markets are all recovering at their own pace it is pretty clear for even the complete novice that we are headed into better times. Just look at San Diego real estate as an example, with some zip codes reflecting home prices rising 30-100% in the last year, the volume of home sales up, the percentage of distressed property sales down to just 14% in August 2012 and continued growth expected next year.
It’s up to you to make up your own mind but the odds are those who put off buying a home until next year will be paying quite a bit more for the same properties.
