How do you know if your housing market has reached the bottom?

November 20, 2008

All markets are different. During the next few years, some housing markets will turn around faster than others. How do you know when your particular market has reached its bottom? If you wait until others pick over the great deals, you'll miss the bottom.

Keep a track of how many properties are listed from month to month. Once you start to see a reduction in inventory then that may mean that buyers are starting to buy. There could be two reasons whey inventory is reducing – overpriced homes may be taken off the market and sales volume could be picking up. You can find out this information from your local real estate agent.

Keep reading national and local newspapers. If your local media reporters are now starting to interview experts in your market and asking questions like, “Have we reached the bottom?” then that might be a sign that there may be a shift.

Talk to your friends and co-workers. How are they feeling about your local economy and housing prices? Are they more optimistic now than they were 3 months ago, or even last month?

Consumer confidence will be a big part in the housing market turning around.

Be on the lookout for mortgage interest rates stabilizing and mortgage companies start to ease lending restrictions.

One of the biggest indicators is when prices have stopped dropping. The secret is to buy before they start to inch back up again!

I’m not suggesting that you wait till the absolute bottom of your market to buy. You have to look at a home as a place to live, not an investment. Only you can determine what an affordable monthly payment is relative to the value of the home you are purchasing. There are individual homes for sale that can be bought at the bottom of your market, even if homes in general have not reached that mark.

Talk to a trusted real estate agent – we can help!

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Local Information for Poughkeepsie, NY

Latitude: 41.700093 -- Longitude: -73.922905

Other Area Cities: Poughkeepsie Arlington Beacon

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Poughkeepsie (pronounced /p?'k?p.si/) is a city in New York, USA and serves as the county seat of Dutchess County, located in the Hudson River Valley roughly midway between New York City and Albany. The name derives from a Native American word (roughly U-puku-ipi-sing), meaning "reed hut by the water" or "campsite by small water," referring to a spring or stream feeding into the Hudson River. Poughkeepsie is known as "The Queen City of the Hudson." Poughkeepsie was founded in 1687. The community was set off from the Town of Poughkeepsie when it became an incorporated village in 1799. The City of Poughkeepsie was chartered in 1854. The city was the capital of New York for a brief period in 1777, and was the site of the ratification of the U.S. Constitution by New York in 1788. -- Source: Wikipedia.com

New York 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Poughkeepsie	New York	United States
Population	29,871	18,976,457	281,421,906
Median age	32.7	35.9	35.3
Median age for Male	30.7	34.5	34
Median age for Female	34.7	37.2	36.5
Households	12,014	7,056,860	105,480,101
Household population	28,886	18,395,996	273,643,273
Average household size	2.4	2.61	2.59
Families	6,557	4,639,387	71,787,347
Average family size	3.15	3.22	3.14
Housing units	13,153	7,679,307	115,904,641
Occupied units	12,014	7,056,860	105,480,101
Vacant units	1,139	622,447	10,424,540

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