Let Go of Buyer Fear. . . Or Don’t Believe All the National Gloom!
I wanted to include this information from an email I received from our broker so as to spread the word that the buyers here in the Seattle area can let go of some of their fear.
A special Broker meeting for SKCAR was held a few days ago. It was to start the celebration for the 100 year SKCAR Anniversary and for us to hear from the Chief Economist for the National Association of Realtors, Lawrence Yun. His presentation was similar to the one Mathew Gardner gave us a few weeks ago, but with more comparisons to the national economy. The bottom line, once again, was that the media is the problem as the real estate picture is not near as bad as it is portrayed and especially the
Seattle market is just fine! The national average is up about 50% over the last 5 years and only down about 1.5% in the last year. So, would any other industry, money fund or anything on earth be upset with that type of return?
It was interesting to find out that an often quoted professor,Robert Shiller (Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20 city home priceindex), who is responsible for many news media articles that the real estate is melting down, also is the same person with a hedge fund that is banking on a down market! NAR is publicizing this little fact so as to properly discredit that organization and person. This is just another example of hugely biased reporting. Case-Shiller not only uses a limited number of cities to compile their data, but for the most part they are in areas that have had more volatile markets such as California, Florida and Arizona. When you read articles keep this in mind. Mr. Yun said, in this area we have absolutely no negative indicators for any type of housing recession. The only factor affecting us is buyer fear.
Thank you Wayne and Debra.
