This year is ‘a bad time to buy a home,’ analyst warns – MarketWatch
This article states so many obvious items that I wonder if I should still read MarketWatch.
- If you lose your job, it might not be a good time to get a house.
- If you have a bad credit score, this is not a good time to get a house or you may have trouble getting one of these great, low-interest mortgages (which you probably won’t be able to get even with a good score since banks are still too scared to lend)
- If you aren’t planning on staying in a house for 5-7 years, it’s not a good time to buy a house. Because people are really thinking this is the right environment to be flipping houses. Right…
The part on unemployment is good. Talking about issues around unemployment is almost always good – very important, and people need to see past just the number of people without jobs and towards the impact that stat has on the overall GDP and economy. But the housing stuff is just weird.
I always take what the “experts” say with a grain of salt. Expert analysis lags real life – they wait for the numbers to “confirm” what the rest of the world – literally – already knew: we are in a bad recession. You and I and everyone else on the street knew this at least 6 months ago. The prices were going up, people were losing jobs, and belt tightening was necessary for nearly everyone. But the “experts” refused to use the word recession.
But the flip side will also be true. The recovery will be happening while “they” still think we are in a recession. So is it a good time to buy a house? If you can get a mortgage approved, yes! Mortgage companies are looking for solid loans to boost their bottom lines, so SOME people are in higher demand for loans. If you aren’t staying in a house for 5 to 7 years, you don’t need a house – that’s been a long-standing rule of thumb, nothing new. If you lose your job or think you will – and you don’t already have a house – don’t buy one! Again, not rocket science here.
Actually, most of this recession was caused by people accepting the “too good to be true” lines they were fed at face value. I actually blogged about this back in September of 2007. (http://12amusings.wordpress.com/2007/09/01/sub-prime-surprise/) What? I can get a home with no money down and only a few hundred dollars a month (interest only loan)? Wow! Sounds too good to be true!!
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