The housing real estate market is facing challenging times, as home prices are decreasing and foreclosures increasing. The home loan mortgage market and residential real estate markets have seen a 180 degree shift from the boom market of the recent past. The market has shifted from sellers to a buyers' market. This has led to immense opportunities in home buying, mortgage refinancing, and home mortgages.
A new Harvard study from its Joint Center for Housing Studies titled, "The State of the Nation's Housing 2008," projects a rise in residential real estate demand over the next decade.
The study sees a growing population needing places to live. The social trends of late marriages and divorces as well as demographic trends of an aging baby boomer generation living longer are going to kick off a huge housing demand, according to the Harvard University study.
Additionally, the findings of the study projected an annual immigration of 1.2 million and large housing demand from years 2010 to 2020. However, before the market again becomes a seller's market, there is a lot of home inventory that has to find matching buyers. The nationwide glut of unsold homes has hit the real estate market and is further placing bargains in the hands of consumers.
Home buyers are finding great overall packages from new home builders in addition to the prices. The study predicts further decreases in home prices and interest rates, employment growth, higher consumer confidence, and more accessible mortgage credit.
Also a decrease in new home construction is a key to lessening inventory. In the past, sharp drops in housing have precipitated turnarounds in previous bubble-bust cycles. But experts see the turnaround being influenced by immigration, demographics, and social factors.
However, the experts don't mention that the current market is simply rectifying the past excesses of the housing bubble. The decrease in the artificially high bubble home prices to the current reasonable prices is a great thing for home buyers, creating affordable home prices.
In the bubble years, the prices of homes reached unfathomable proportions, making home ownership put of the reach of millions of Americans. Majority of homeowners couldn't afford to buy homes, and many were simply given subprime mortgages and adjustable rate mortgages.
Fortunately, the equilibrium in the mortgage and housing real estate arena is once again being met, where affordable mortgages and homes are once again in the people's reach. The current real estate market is growing through much needed corrections, after which it will return to a healthier stable market.
By: Gaurav Bhola, MSM, Managing Editor
