It's a Housing Slump, Not a Crisis
What distinguishes the current slump from the subprime mortgage collapse is that there’s much less leverage in the financial system.
How bad can the housing slump get?
Photographer: Bloomberg
I’m in the process of building a house, so I recently met with the head of a real estate brokerage to discuss selling my current home in about a year. Knowing that I worked in finance, he asked me my views on the housing market because he said he was seeing lot of doom and gloom on the internet.
First, all real estate is local. The housing market where I live in coastal South Carolina is still strong. Although transactions are down from a year ago, that’s because there are very few houses on the market. A lot of people – many of them cash flush and not impacted by rising interest rates -- are moving here from other parts of the country, and I wouldn’t have any trouble selling my house today if I wanted. He agreed.