2009 shows the light at the end of the tunnel!

 The nation's proverbial real estate bubble launched in the middle of 2000 and steadily ascended towards the sky until, at the end of summer of 2005, a small pin punctured it and began to deflate, slowly.  However, in Florida, a few months later Hurricane Wilma blasted it with dozens of darts. 

Another bubble also launched about the same time as the real estate bubble but rising slowly while drifting around with the wind for years until it finally escaped the wind's pull and, to this date, still continues to escalate rapidly: INFLATION. 

Meanwhile, in the middle of 2006, the “mortgage melt down” threw in a monkey wrench to the deflating real estate bubble which triggered colossal mayhem among banks and investment companies.  Naturally, all analysts focused their scrutiny on this new phenomenon and their conclusion revealed that the major culprit of this real estate debacle is mainly faulted by lenders who carelessly approved countless loans without proper verifications. 

The good news is this whole mess is being repaired while preventing our nation entering a depression. Unfortunately, this mending is not happening overnight but thanks to our government, the Federal Bank Reserve (FED) and intervention by many other world nation's Central Banks, we are pulling out of this tunnel and begin to see the light.

any experts opine that we have now reached the bottom of this housing downturn which resulted in massive real estate price decline.  These experts continue by predicting that arriving at the bottom of this cycle will result in home prices leveling and continue to stay leveled for the next 15-20 years before slowly moving up again as did Florida and most of the rest of the country through the 1980ies and 90ies.

Also, let’s not forget that while the real estate bubble was rising, our property taxes shot up along with the ride.  That, too, is being corrected.  In fact on January 29, 2008, we, Floridians, voted for “Amendment 1” (portability, increase our Homestead Exemption by another $25,000 less school tax portion and capping the property tax to ten percent for non-homesteaders) but that is not enough.  The Florida Special 20-year Tax Study Committee has put together another proposal to bring to Florida voters on the November 2008 ballot: Proposition Amendment 5 which will essentially keep all the goodies in “Amendment 1” plus it will reduce the cap for non-homesteaders down to five percent, buy out the school taxes which can represent about 25 to 35 % of our property taxes and increase our sales tax by up to one penny to fully fund school needs.

Since Hurricane Wilma, Florida and almost the entire country has been in a major stubborn “tug-of-war” between sellers and buyers of real estate.  Both held on tenaciously to their respective end of the rope.  Alas, opponents are equally exhausted and they are gradually welcoming a truce; hence, we are now seeing more and more property sales happening at those of 2003 - 2004 prices.  Albeit, there are still people who are holding on firmly to that rope but they are showing desperate signs of fatigue.  Best time to buy is now!