What I learned In The Big Apple – Part 2

I’m a big proponent of continued learning. I love to get smarter and could attend classes every week if I had the time. I would love my full time job to be traveling the Country and attending every conference, seminar and summit that is offered (and I often do). I love it that much.

One big reason why I attended the Inman News Real Estate conference in New York was because I wanted an unbiased opinion (no company affiliations) from researchers, business and finance experts and economist on the outlook for the 2008 real estate market in the US.

From most, the news was not good…The consensus was that the US is heading into a recession and the housing market is only going to get worse, said four out of the five panelist that spoke. They included;

Dottie Herman, President and CEO, Pridential Douglas Elliman
Barry Ritholtz, Chief Marketing Strategist, Ritholtz Research; CEO & Director of Equity Research, Fusion IQ
Noah Rosenblatt, Founder UrbanDigs.com, Licensed RE Salesperson, Citi Habitats
Professor Nouriel Roubini, Co-Founder & Chairman of RGE Monitor: Professor of Economics, New York University’s Stern School of Business.

"We are two years into a housing correction, seven months into a credit crisis with a huge debt problem and another two years before we reach the bottom", said the panelist. They went on to say that "foreclosures from the sub-prime debackle will exceed  2.5 million homes this coming year and we should see 10 million homes with negative equity."

Hmmm, not exactly what I was hoping to hear.

Brad Inman compared the 1978-1982 real estate decline to the current decline we are experiencing. He said,

"From 1978 -1982 we went from 4 million homes sold down to 2 million homes sold but recovered back to 4 million homes just two-three years later. Currently we went from 7 million homes sold in 2006 to just 5 million in 2007". He attributes the recovery in the early  80’s to the drop in mortgage rates to speed the recovery. This time, he says, "we’re just not sure how to turn it around…where’s the switch"? There is no obvious fix and lots of home owners are heading for trouble. He suggest that as real estate professionals, "we do all that we can to advocate for our clients to save their homes".

Ok, thats about as much negativity as I can handle, so be sure to tune in tomorrow for more from Connect 2008! Upcoming posts will include some of the 50 Best tools to use in this Market by Brian Boero, 1000 Watt Consulting. Also, the who’s who that I was lucky to meet one on one, as well as lots of other great info that I was privy to!