Up and Down Real Estate Markets

The massive changes in the real estate market are causing near panic for some homeowners. There is no need for this. The market will come back. We’ve been through this before. Real estate prices can go up and down just like stocks sold on the stock market, the price of building materials, the price of oil, etc.  Most of the time, real estate prices change fairly slowly, however. Historically, real estate prices have gone up over the long haul.  In our area, real estate prices went up for most of the 1980s, fell in ‘89, '90, and '91, then started climbing again.  By about a year ago, prices had gained back all their losses and had climbed higher than any of their previous highs.  That matches what has always happened in the real estate market in the USA.  There are ups and downs, but the next "up" has consistently taken prices higher than those in the last "up" market.  There's nothing that says the future has to work like the past, but I expect that pattern to continue so long as the American economy is basically sound.