Up,Up and Away In My Real Estate BalloonWritten by Elaine VonCannon
It is June, 2005 and media has initiated a doom and gloom campaign for real estate market. Major national news sources are reporting that ‘housing bubble’ will inevitably burst. These sources also speculate that this bursting real estate bubble will cripple real estate market and adversely affect economy of entire United States. I am a REALTOR in Williamsburg, Virginia, a market with a high growth potential for real estate investments. There are similar markets to Williamsburg, such as Silicone Valley in California, Washington D.C. and suburbs of Maryland and Northern Virginia, and I could add numerous others to this hot list. The closer a home is to metropolitan and populated areas and desirable places to live, higher cost of real estate. The chances of turning a profit in a shorter amount of time on real estate investments increases in these types of areas. Real estate prices in one state or even areas within same state are not tied to each other. But U.S. media might like to make us think they are all related because extreme stories sell newspapers and add value to advertising time. Real estate is still most stable investment a person can make with their money, and it will be for decades to come. In my opinion, media is also tied to stock market, which loses investors when people choose security, safety and high return of a real estate investment over an investment in stocks, bonds, or mutual funds. The media helped stimulate a similar fall for dot com companies in early part of this millennium. The fact is, many dot com companies were houses built on sand, and these fell. The others remained, and are stronger than ever. E-commerce remains one of most efficient, and time saving ways to do business. In fact, I would not be a major player in Williamsburg real estate market without my website. In a similar vein, I believe that media myth about eventual collapse of national housing market is painted in too broad of strokes. I am in good company with my opinion. I would like real estate investors, home buyers, and home sellers to consider opinion of two articulate and influential men, instead of relying upon U.S. media’s disproportionate analysis of real estate market. U.S. Treasury Secretary, John Snow, stated in an interview on Bloomberg Radio on April 26, 2005, “I do not think evidence suggests there is a national housing bubble at all. Housing prices are high in some markets, but those markets are supported by underlying supply and demand considerations. It’s really a misnomer, I think, to talk about bubbles in sense that you get a stock market bubble or a bubble in commodity markets.” And, David Lereach, National Association of Realtor’s chief economist, said in late April of 2005, “We still have more buyers than sellers. There is a strong demand for housing from a growing population.”
| | Pottery makes a great gift, plain and simpleWritten by Robert Gravestock
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