Washington DC Real Estate Housing Prices…where are they going?

Here’s what we know. We know that the real estate market (at least real estate in the Washington DC Metropolitan Area) is cyclical. I have a friend who told me years ago that he believed that our market operated in 7 year cycles…the price of housing would increase for 7 years and then it would level off or decrease for another seven years…before it began a 7 year increase. I never challenged him, but I know that the last increase lasted for more than seven years. 

•  "The prices of houses seems to have reached a plateau, and there is reasonable expectancy that prices will decline." (Time, December 1, 1947)
• “Houses cost too much for the mass market. Today’s average price is around $8,000—out of reach for two-thirds of all buyers." (Science Digest, April, 1948)
• "The goal of owning a home seems to be getting beyond the reach of more and more Americans. The typical new house today costs $28,000." (Business Week, September 4, 1969
• "The era of easy profits in real estate may be drawing to a close." (Money, January, 1981)
• "The golden-age of risk-free run-ups in home prices is gone." (Money, March 1985)
• "Most economists agree… [a home] will become little more than a roof and a tax deduction, certainly not the lucrative investment it was through much of the 1980s." (Money, 1986)
• "Financial planners agree that houses will continue to be a poor investment." (Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, November 1993)

I could add a ton of “current” predictions, but you get the picture…

- Contributing blogger Gretchen Koitz

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