A couple of things…The Consumer Conference Board’s measure of confidence is due out next Tuesday. In August, the Consumer Confidence climbed to 53.5 from 51.0. Although it may be up from last February 2009 when it was at 26.0, the confidence index NEVER dipped below 60.0 during the last recession. The Consumer Confidence Index to me is the key truth detector. Once it gets over 60 and stays there and continues to steadily rise, then I believe that my real estate business will be “out of the woods”. Keep an eye on the Index. I think that after the election in November, we will start to see a steady rise in the index. I also believe that the American people are not happy with the spending and that they are afraid of any more taxation by the Federal Government. Once those concerns are addressed by an election, I believe that the Index will go up, and henceforth the real estate market will show steady signs of improving. By spring, I look for the Index to be above 60. I think that the index will moderately rise, but don’t look for readings over 100 for quite some time. To quantify…maybe 5 years or more? Again, my opinion, but these are my thoughts, thought I’d share…anyone care to comment?

The housing market, like I’ve said before, needs to distance itself from the Tax Credit. The next time Washington says they are going to help your industry…tell them to be a little more creative. Throwing money at the industry to artificially stimulate the market was, in my opinion, a bad idea. Markets will rise and fall as inventory and demand dictate. As we have gotten further from the Tax Credit, our market appears to be stabilizing. It fell off a cliff after the Tax Credit ended, people are trying to adjust their thinking without any outside stimulation from Washington. In doing this business for 28 years, I had never seen anything like the Tax Credit. I got along just fine. Alexandria is such an island of prosperity though, our market would not have suffered to the extent that some markets did because it was not overbuilt. I believe that this market would have stabilized a year ago, if Washington hadn’t introduced the tax credit to the marketplace. It only cost the taxpayers $20,000,000,000 as an experiment. Hopefully, some other markets found it beneficial to survival. Alexandria has always and will continue to grow and prosper because of it’s diversity. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else…nor invest.

The housing reports coming in nationwide are starting to show signs of bottoming and bouncing upward. Again, I have said and believe that 2010 will show the bottom of this recession for us. Pricing will take some time to recover as sellers have been hammered hard on their equity. Buyers are looking for value, as they have always done. New construction, once recovered, will need to provide more value to buyers then before. The housing of the future is about to enter another new chapter. Keep your eye on the pendulum.