Is Realty Stranger Than Fiction?
I just read an article from the Wall Street Journal that informed us that traders predict housing prices in Miami to fall by 27.9% in the next four years. For those of you that are fans of Gary Larson’s “The Far Side”, I’m sure you can appreciate it when I say “blah blah Miami blah blah fall blah blah 27.9%”. Not to say that prices won’t fall and not to say that it perhaps won’t be exactly 27.9% in the next four years. It’s more just to say that people will only tend to hear the Miami-fall-27.9% part, and not ask other questions.
For example, questions I would ask myself are “Who are these traders?”, “How does stock market speculation affect the housing market in Miami?”, “How did they arrive at this figure?”, “How does this really affect me?”, “Why is Lost not going to be shown until January, where are they going with the plot, and how will this affect the price of housing?”
But the biggest question I really have is “How much does the media affect the price of housing?” If I’m the average consumer (of houses), I’m probably going to read this and think “Gee, I shouldn’t buy now because the market is going to drop.” Of course, if everyone thinks like this, then no one is going to buy, which would probably create the self fulfilling prophecy that the sky is falling and it would be wiser to invest in a major pharmaceutical company.
I still think it’s a great time to buy if I can negotiate a fair price, but that’s just me.However, I think the more important question for each of us is “What do you think?” Ultimately, this is what will affect the price of housing.
Filed under: Real Estate Market | Tagged: 27.9, housing, market, media, miami, predict, price, traders, wall street journal | No Comments »
