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 Hastings, MN

Latitude: 44.733317 -- Longitude: -92.857804

Other Area Cities: Maplewood Saint Paul Woodbury Inver Grove Heights South Saint Paul Hastings Cottage Grove

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The area around Hastings was first settled by a military detachment sent from Fort Snelling to guard a blocked shipment of supplies in the winter of 1820. A Lieutenant William. G. Oliver camped in an area that would come to be known as Oliver's Grove. After the Sioux Indian Treaty of 1851 opened the area for white settlement, the Oliver's Grove area was surveyed and was incorporated as a city in 1857, four years after admission of the state of Minnesota to the union. The name "Hastings" was drawn out of a hat having been one of the suggested names placed in by four of the original founders (the middle name of Henry Sibley). Hastings and nearby township of Nininger were areas of tremendous land speculation in the late 19th century, being billed by Ignatius Donnelly as the potential "New Chicago". The Panic of 1857 would put an end to this dream. -- Source: Wikipedia.com

Minnesota 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Hastings	Minnesota	United States
Population	18,204	4,919,479	281,421,906
Median age	35	35.4	35.3
Median age for Male	33.8	34.4	34
Median age for Female	36.1	36.3	36.5
Households	6,642	1,895,127	105,480,101
Household population	17,543	4,783,596	273,643,273
Average household size	2.64	2.52	2.59
Families	4,723	1,255,141	71,787,347
Average family size	3.13	3.09	3.14
Housing units	6,758	2,065,946	115,904,641
Occupied units	6,642	1,895,127	105,480,101
Vacant units	116	170,819	10,424,540

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