Memphis Market After the Housing Bubble

Everyone is hearing about America's "housing bubble" predicted by some major investment Gurus, like Jack Templeton, founder of the Templeton Funds. While this is a reality, there are some things for people to realize if they're seriously considering making a purchase in Memphis or selling their home there now to downsize or move up in scale to accommodate a growing family.

The housing bubble has, indeed, taken its toll on coastal and vacation areas like much of coastal Florida, South Carolina coastal areas and almost all of California. Condo's have been especially hard hit. Generally speaking, the over-inflation of pricing has extended to the outer suburbs of major cities, places that have recently suffered the most abrupt market correction. Boston and New York have seen the bubble's damage in particular. Building sprees and buyer's binges played a major role in this overindulgence in real estate. Of course, new construction companies and mortgage lenders jumped right into the deal as well to make money off the insane price appreciations everyone assumed would last for ever. Everyone making the most money from this over-inflation helped to make the bubble a growing reality and is responsible for the damage that is being felt now in many sections of the country. Nationwide housing pending sales were down by around 16% from the end of 2005 to the end of 2006. As people have overpaid for homes and made absolutely foolish choices on getting tricky and dangerous loans, or when many just couldn't make the payments because of swiftly rising property taxes or other factors, foreclosures have risen to record levels, a disturbing number of them right here in Memphis.