October 2007
Community Paper
copyright ©2007 by Community Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.


Feeling Bullish Or Circling The Drain?
by Mike Derenthal, Derenthal Realty Group and College Park resident

A local broker recently told me he felt very “bullish” on the downtown market right now, that we were currently in the middle of a fantastic buying window, and that folks needed to buy RIGHT NOW or they would miss their opportunity.

The next day a friend of mine told me that “the Central Florida market was circling the drain” as he so aptly described it, and that he was certain there was more pain to be felt before values leveled out.

Both statements brought to mind some wise words I recently read: “You won’t know for certain that we’ve hit the bottom of the market until you see it in the rear view mirror.”
Trying to time a market is a tricky thing. Just ask all of the investors who bought real estate in ’05 with the intent of making a quick buck, and who are now struggling just to minimize their losses.

As with most things, there are a lot of people in this business who claim to know exactly where the market is going and why.

If you’ve come across someone like that, stop listening to them. They’ve either got a real life, working crystal ball (which is kind of creepy) or they probably don’t understand how much they don’t understand.

When you stop and think about it, there is no more certainty to what the market is doing right now than there was 2 years ago. It just so happens that two years ago, a lot of folks were acting like real estate was a fool-proof investment. Now a lot of those same folks are claiming it’s a foolish investment. Both would be wrong.

Real estate markets are complex. Most of the available information on market conditions that gets quoted in the press is on the large-scale, or macro level. Yet many of the factors that truly impact real estate values often occur at a much more localized level. And even within the localized level, there will be some outstanding opportunities to be had out there at any given time, regardless of what the rest of the market is experiencing.

We all want to make the best decisions possible when it comes to dealing with money. But for most of us, buying or selling real estate is a big decision that has not only financial implications, but effects our family, jobs, time commitments, etc. If you find yourself trying to make a decision on your next real estate transaction based solely on timing the market, be careful, you could be plotting a risky course.

Regardless of what the market is doing on the macro level, there are always going to be active buyers and sellers in the market place, and there are always going to be good opportunities out there for both.

by: Mike Derenthal, Derenthal Realty, www.DerenthalRealty.com
1520 Edgewater Drive, Suite E, Orlando, FL 32804
407-965-1919

See this month's ad by clicking here