Jason Bernabei, TriCastle Realty
DEL MAR, April 9 2012 -- Gooooood Monday morning San Diego! Spring is in full effect in southern California, and with it comes an innate sense of optimism. Yes, Spring dawns eternal, but for a nation still immersed in potentially the greatest(and most sudden) economic meltdown ever seen, is the American Dream of home ownership still alive and kicking?
If cynicism has been the prevailing view of economists, market analysts, pundits, and the like, one can hardly blame them. Many declared the end of the American dream of homeownership as buried deep down, far under the rubble of its collapsed roof; the roof of a house built not on solid foundation, but on quicksand. Hell, more like built on horizontal stilts suspended over a bottomless pit that not even the fine print of legalese described on the purchase docs. Finally snapping over its own weight, plunging suddenly and aimlessly into the dark depths below, collapsed houses of cards impaled into the landscape on every neighborhood in the country. If that’s too purply for you, let me be more specific. Housing prices tanked; the economy was tanking fast; foreclosures were materializing in record numbers; and liar loans began coming to term, spelling rising mortgage payments, and the realization of the imminence of a vicious cycle. And half a decade later, here we are, still trying to measure the fall-out, past and present, and forecast what’s yet to come. Only the pit has turned out not to be quite as bottomless as it seemed when we were still free-falling.
And while I can sing the tale of doom and gloom with the best of them, I’ve maintained an upbeat disposition overall amidst the chorus of conflicting data available in any assessment of the Housing crisis and the economy overall. Here are some positives that suggest that Home Ownership will not be a dream forgotten, but one that might just be available to the next generation (and my generation) after all. The job market is trending in the right direction, and the numbers support this trend, now several quarters long. While college graduates have seen their unemployment rates almost double that of the nation’s unemployment rates, CNN recently reported that the job market is looking much better for college grads. According to employer reports, it is expected that 10.2% more graduates will be hired this year, as opposed to last year, and the median salary for starting college grads is $42, 569, an increase of 4.5% from last year.
More employed recent college graduates means more potential buyers in the marketplace. Record low interest rates, FHA mortgage lending with a very small down payment, low purchase prices, and an industry desperate to recover from the collapse of its own weight are further reasons for optimism.
You can contact me, Jason Bernabei, at jasonb@tricastle.com, and check me out each and every Monday on www.therealtyinsiders.com for more, and be sure to tune in to see myself, and local industry experts talking real estate on “The Realty Insiders,” THE ONLY real estate show in town!
Jay’s Outlook: partly sunny
Jason Bernabei, TriCastle Realty
