Tuesday, July 1, 2008

The Fever has Broke

Both the local market and my personal "spring fever" have both broken.

First the local market. Last year the ratio of PS to available home that meet my criteria reached 33% for about a week, and quickly faded back into the 20% range. At that time, there were very few homes on my list (but it was growing). This year, the PS to available home ratio has stayed in the low 30% range for over a month. But as of last week that has now fallen back into the 20% range. More inventory is coming on the market. Some of it is heavily discounted (like $135 sqft) which helps keep the PS ratio up.

As for us, I think we are going to take a breather. My intense desire to nest this spring has now abated. We plan to reorganize our lives to be more comfortable in our rental (find storage for our old fishing boat so we can actually use the garage). With oil over $140 a barrel, the dollar weakening, foreclosures rising with no end in sight, inflation on the rise......I am just too anxious about the future to feel comfortable making such a permanent decision about the next 10-15 years of my life and our entire nest egg.

2 comments:

Deflationary Jane said...

BT, you forgot to mention you have the other added benefit of continuing to save more of the lefty green too!

Life is too short. Slow down and enjoy the yeck out the family.

Buying Time said...

Hey DJ!

Glad to see you made it to St.Louis (at $4.50 a gallon, road trips aren't what they used to be!)...and especially happy to see that you are still checking in.

I am actually on the other coast (Jacksonville) this week for work.

We have a fairly busy summer ahead of us....justa another reason (of many) to put the house hunt on hold.