Northeastern United States Does Not Follow Dire Housing, Real Estate Predictions

While Housing Prices Have Declined, Home Sales Remain Strong

The real estate news for the past couple of months has not been good: record foreclosure numbers, financial problems in the home loan industry, and a general softening of the real estate market. On Sept. 11, the National Association of Realtors downwardly revised its home sales estimations again, saying it expects existing home sales rates and prices to drop in both 2007 and 2008.

This information would indicate that the U.S. is firmly entrenched in a buyer's market. A buyers market is defined as a market that has more sellers than buyers, and low prices result from this excess of supply of houses. So you would think that any buyer looking for the perfect house would have a large inventory to choose from and low prices.

Yet an informal and unscientific poll of four families recently transplanted to southeast Connecticut reveals this is not the case. Three families came from Michigan, and one from New Jersey, and all four had difficulty finding a house in a 6 month time period. One rented a house in Waterford, CT for 6 months before finding a house to purchase, in that time period the couple estimates they saw 90 houses. One could not find a pre-existing home in Stonington, CT where they wanted to live, so they purchased an as-of-yet uncompleted home in a new development; they have lived in three rental houses while waiting for their house to be built. One looked for a house for more than 4 months on a long distance basis before moving to Connecticut and living in a Days Inn for close to a month before closing on a house; they were lucky and a made an offer the first day an acceptable home went on the market in the neighborhood where they wanted to live. The last family moved to their second rental house and has not yet found a permanent home. Not much of a buyer's market.