I noticed this book in my office library the other day, and pulled it off the shelf. "Crisis Real Estate Investing" by Hal Morris. Sub-Title: "Increase and Protect Your Assets from Potential Disaster". The copyright date is 1982.
The blurb on the dust jacket starts: "During the late 1970s, real estate skyrocketed with values increasing 15 to 20 percent annually. Suddenly the real estate boom slowed, appreciation stopped, interest rates climbed and homeowners, buyers, sellers, lenders and borrowers scrambled to refinance, bail out or somehow take advantage of their neighbor's misfortune."
Or how about the first paragraph on page one: "It came about so quickly that almost no one could believe it. Prices for homes all cross America went up dramatically year after year. One region reported 15 percent a year appreciation, another called it 21 percent, and still a third, 23 percent. Imagine the value of a house going up by nearly a quarter of its price every year! And then one day it just stopped."
Huh? Let me check that copyright date again. Yep, 1982. The book talks about the Savings and Loan Crisis of the 1980s, (you remember that, right?) avoiding foreclosure, and goes on to cover real estate investment strategies to profit in a down market. The charts and graphs show prices in the 90s and 100s, but there you are.
To everything there is a season.
Remember it? Yes, I participated. the '80's were the age when I cut my teeth on real estate, justifying an interest rate of 14% to be "good." Of course it was good, it just come down from 18%!
Markets go up, markets go down. Life goes on.
All aboard the marigoround of real estate. Everything is a cycle and and it is just a question of magnitude. Over all the values do rise but when too many people think that they are "investors" there will always be a correction looming. And round and round we go.
You are so right, and you could probably go back another 30 yrs to see the same cycles, over and over...I can't say too much, I'll give away my age!
Moral of the story is "hang in there", its going to be a slow time for awhile, but it will come back.