Recurring themes – renewed hope…

I had occasion to go back over the last three years of postings to this blog recently and what jumped out at me was the recurring theme at this time of year for the last three years running – the bottom is near and things are about to get better.

It was actually hard to believe that I’ve been writing about this recession and its impact on the housing market for that long. Post after post was about the foreclosure mess and the mess that it has caused in the housing industry. I did see a few post back in the 08 and 09 that foresaw the current “new reality” situation that we are experiencing right now. I called it a fundamental reset of the American way of life in those posts. Perhaps that was a bit over dramatic but the basic premise – that things had changed permanently and that we would never return to the “the good ole days” turned out to be true (at least here in Michigan).

There were a few other themes that seem to have been consistent over the three years –

The ineptitude of government at the state and federal levels to deal with the issues at hand; with a running litany of alphabet soup programs HAFA, HAMP, HA-Whatever.
The ability of the scammers and sleazy operators in the banking and mortgage business to stay ahead of the regulators and to find new ways to rip people off during hard time.
The dramatic changes in the real estate industry as home values fell and as more and more practitioners turned to focusing on the distressed home market.
The failure of homeowners to accept and deal with the sudden loss in values of their major investment.
The unfortunate education of a whole new class of lowball buyers who are out trying to steal houses from the unfortunate foreclosed homeowners.
A recurring headline (used at least 5 times) of “Are we there yet?” as we all searched for the elusive bottom of this dreadful market.

Of course there were also lots of posts that encouraged hope and finding a positive attitude amidst all of the carnage. One cannot be forever the pessimist, after all.

Although I have been proven wrong for three years in a row, I am convinced that we are there now – bumping along the bottom and about to start climbing back. There are lots of positive indicators, from increases in housing starts and sales increases (albeit inconsistent, yet), to stories about the economy in general being back on track. In Michigan we were the first into the tank and many predict will be the last one out; however, even here we have some indication that the worst is over. Two of our local three automakers have been through their catharsis events (bankruptcy) and have returned to the living. The resulting ripples through our supplier companies are settling down and life is settling back into what will be the “new normal”. I’m even starting to see a trickle of move-up buyers cautiously re-entering the market – something that has been largely missing for almost two years now.

So, as we head into the Holiday season and I get to write my annual “looking back” and “looking ahead” posts, I’ll be dragging out the old theses about how it seems that the worst is over and the year ahead is going to be better. Hopefully I won’t look back o that someday and wonder, “What was I thinking?”