Paul Meisel

Why There's No Such Thing As a Housing Bubble

Boy, there sure is a lot of excitement about this. The biggest takeaway should be, it depends on where you are and what you are looking at.

I had dinner last Friday with the principal of a fairly large regional builder. While we ate, two local realtors came by to chat, separately.

One told me how great things are. Another told me that its slow, slow, slow. They work for the same agency.

The builder told me he is down 75% from last year, and he has no reason to lie to me (I am not in the business, but could probably check his facts easy enough). I have heard brokers quote 30%-50% down.

If you are buying primarily for investment purposes, it is a good time to steal something from a desperate seller. If you want a particular property or type of property, it depends how motivated the sellers are. And if you just need a suitable place to live, it depends on whether that property can be purchased at a price that represents value to YOU.

Or if you already have a place to live and don't need anything, then its all academic -- about projecting the direction of the economy and the stock prices in related industries. You don't have to read a lot of blogs to realize that macroeconomic forecasting may be more reputable than fortune telling and weather forecasting but is fraught with many of the same difficulties.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of this forum is the opportunity to express diversity of opinion.