Are we there yet?

Many economists are now saying that we have basically bottomed out and are bumping along the bottom (small ups and downs but not in an overall downward trend). There is still much disagreement about how long this phase of the current deep recession ( we don't use the D-word) will last, but there is fair consensus that the worst is over and that we soon will start a slow recovery. Yea! I guess.

There is also a fair amount of concern in the ranks of economists (especially those of conservative leaning political bent) about the threat of damaging inflation, based upon the huge Federal debt that has been rung up to finance the various stimulus efforts. The worst among the nay-sayers is already predicting that the sky will be falling and hyper-inflation will be upon us soon. Oh, brother, yet another crisis to weather.

I have yet to see one indicator that I'm looking for and that is the decline of foreclosure sales and leases and the return of the move-up buyer to the real estate market. Foreclosures as a percentage of sales were still running at 70% through April - see
http://www.movetomilford.com/sold_homes.html for the details on what has sold locally. We are also still seeing homes sell for about 1.6 to 1.7 times their SEV, which may end up being our "landing zone", from which we will all have to start the value climb back.

Obviously we have a unique set of economic issues to deal with locally, with two out of three of our biggest local employers in or facing bankruptcy and hundreds of local parts suppliers on the brink. Until we get through that crisis our market will be controlled by FUD - fear, uncertainty and doubt.

So, are we there yet? If not already there we are sure close and hopefully we can get through the worst of it this year and start working our way back in 2010.