I don't remember where I found it but I once read that ever since the 1800's the price of property has doubled every 20 years. I'm intersted in buying a few condos as long term investments in my own market but being a realtively new Realtor I have no idea how much lower prices will go. We currently have 5023 residential units on the market. Last year it was half that. I've seen prices come down 10-20% in some local communities this year. How long do you think it will be till the next boom market? 3 years? 5 years? Should I put my money into something else for the time being other than Real Estate?

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Interesting question Coastal...

I think it is VERY market specific. In Louisville (where I am) it is not going to go down much at all. Of course it didn't appreciate much as well. My best advice is to go the OFHEO (Office of something or other affecting housing--Google it--grin) and get their historical appreciation rates by Quarter by MSA...

This will give you a good idea of where thins are at and you can draw some specific conclusions from that...

The stock market is starting to look attractive right now, but there are almost ALWAYS bargains available in RE since we know the market pretty well..

Best

Eric

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I think 4-5 years at least.

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The next time interest rates are low enough that dumb people can speculate again, that's when the boom will happen. The good thing is interest rates seem to have dropped recently, but only low enough to where serious buyers are serious again.

I think we'll see a stable and growing market over the next few years, where good values sell and speculators get burned. Just the way it should be. Remember that the "drop" being talked about on every corner is from unnaturally high levels in some areas of the country. What we're seeing is a stabilization. Austin's doing very well, so I'm happy

That is EXACTELY why prices went crazy in some areas. Everyone trying to jump on the late night infomercial bandwagon. After the stock market popped everyone decided to get into something "safe" like real estate. All the sheep followed and speculation made rookies way to aggressive. I saw some stuff going on in my market that I still can not believe.

Well hopefully enough idiots got burned this time that it won't be as bad again.

What sucks is that the people who really need, want and can afford to buy what they're looking for got scared off by the slump. But in reality, all we needed was to scare off the speculators. Interest rates aren't much higher than a year ago, so obviously that's not the cause of lower demand. It's the countrywide panic that somehow real estate is going down everywhere.

It is not too difficult to foresee a housing boom. However, when you say ‘housing boom’ there are different aspects to real estate than residential housing. Over the past 20 years, my wife and I have owned and managed multi family investment properties and currently manage 22 rental units. This is over simplified, but for any ‘prediction’ you would want to consider these factors and how they are inter-related with each other: building permits being pulled, your city’s current rate of growth, interest rates, foreclosures, etc. For instance, in our area multifamily housing has been overbuilt, but our area is growing. As interest rates stabilize or increase we are seeing more foreclosures on the market. With the combination of little to no building permits being drawn for multi family housing, foreclosures on the rise (more renters!), coupled with our area growth, I anticipate in our area having a shortage of rental units available for renting, thus creating a Landlord’s market with rents increasing and property values of multi family housing increasing. This wouldn’t be considered a ‘housing boom’ but a ‘multi-family boom!’ I believe the same principles can be applied to any aspect of the real estate market, whether it be commercial property, land, residential homes, etc. Real estate, I believe, is a lot like the stock market. If you do research, diversify, and invest conservatively, you shouldn’t get burned, at least my wife and I have not been burned yet (fingers crossed).

Don't forget the impact the retiring baby boomers will have. Some will be buying second homes. Many will be moving into their last homes. We're talking about 70 million people with tons of cash. They will keep good markets strong and may create new booming markets as well. But what happens when the last of them buy? Who will take their places? I expect a strong market in places like Austin for the next 5-7 years and then a decline for 5 or so years. Other markets? I don't know because I don't watch them as closely as my own back yard.

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Florida will have have a housing boom when taxes are fair again and homeowners are not slaves to their own homes.

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Hm, That's like saying this country will be better when we have honest politicians and people stop eating junk food. Just ain't gonna happen!