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 Chicago, IL

Latitude: 41.840675 -- Longitude: -87.679365

Other Area Cities: Naperville Calumet Park Chicago Oak Park Niles Country Club Hills

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Chicago (IPA pronunciation ??'ka?go, ?i'kæ?g?; shi-cah-go, shi-caw-go) is the largest city in the state of Illinois, the largest in the Midwest, and, with a population of three million people, is the third-most populous city in the United States. The Chicago metropolitan area (colloquially known as Chicagoland) has a population of over 9.5 million people in Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana, making it also the third largest metropolitan area in the United States.[1] Chicago is located along the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan and is a major center of transportation, industry, politics, culture, finance, medicine and higher education. Chicago is the financial, business, and cultural capital of the Midwest. Founded in 1833 at the site of a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed, it soon became a transportation hub of North America. -- Source: Wikipedia.com

Illinois 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Chicago	Illinois	United States
Population	2,896,016	12,419,293	281,421,906
Median age	31.5	34.7	35.3
Median age for Male	30.5	33.3	34
Median age for Female	32.6	36	36.5
Households	1,061,928	4,591,779	105,480,101
Household population	2,836,469	12,097,512	273,643,273
Average household size	2.67	2.63	2.59
Families	632,558	3,105,513	71,787,347
Average family size	3.5	3.23	3.14
Housing units	1,152,868	4,885,615	115,904,641
Occupied units	1,061,928	4,591,779	105,480,101
Vacant units	90,940	293,836	10,424,540

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