Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Home Prices Still Need to Decline More to be "Affordable"

Home affordability is a reltaive thing.  However, that affordability should not be based on interest rates.  It should be based on income and housing prices - in other words the cash value of the home.  According to this Wall Street Journal article, Home Prices: Low, But Still No Bargain, home prices do indeed need to fall more.  I agree with this overall assessment.  Of course this will lead to more foreclosures as more homeowners experience negative equity situations.  If you do factor in financing then there is another problem: the looming commercial real estate crisis (more on that soon).