Tampa real-estate agentA Tampa real-estate agent recently witnessed a bidding war on a piece of property which is virtually unheard of in this day and age; however it is a sign that the economy is starting to bounce back when the housing market is showing signs of recovery however small they might be.

 

For people who are simply looking for a place to live, which are many people, there are deals everywhere they turn.  There are record low rates on home loans with the average rate being around 5.12 percent at the end of August this year for a 30-year fixed rate loan, this according to Freddie Mac, the home loan making giant.

 

There are signs in some places that the country is nearing an end to this downward spiral that had reduced housing prices by 32 percent nationwide and according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, you raise some $3.5 trillion worth of home equity.  Numerous people were counting on their home equity to pay for things like retirement or their kids’ college funds and now there’s no equity in their homes.  New home prices are gently edging up and for the first time in three years, the Standard & Poor Home Price Index, which tracks changes in home prices in 20 different US cities, has shown a monthly gain.

 

However, what’s more than absolute prices is how they relate to what an individual earns. The data shop Fiserv compares the cost of houses with household incomes and according to their count, houses across the country, at the end of March, were only 7 percent more expensive than they were in the year 2000.

 

Tampa houses for sale are seeing a return to normal partly because of reasonable lending: people are not buying more than they can afford, which was part of the problem before. Also, banks are not letting people borrow more than they can afford. This is a smart practice on the part of the banks and financial lending institutions that should have been their logic all along; however we cannot go back in time and change things, we can only move forward from here.

Tagged with: • •

Filed under: Real Estate

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!