Industry experts and our Central Showplace spot poll results are consistent as many conflicting opinions still exist:

 DONALD TRUMP

“It’s one of the best times to buy real estate”, said Donald Trump, chairman and president of the Trump Organization.

“It’s an amazing time to buy,” Trump said. “This is the best time I’ve ever seen to buy both real estate and probably other things. This is one of the great opportunities.”

SAM ZELL

Billionaire investor Sam Zell made what is acknowledged to be one of the best-timed investment decisions ever by selling his real estate empire at the peak of the market in February 2007.

Zell, sold his holdings in the U.S. office market by selling Equity Office Properties Trust to Blackstone Group LP for $39 billion including debt in the biggest leveraged buyout at the time. The sale earned Zell approximately $900 million.

Zell, chairman of Chicago-based apartment REIT Equity Residential, said there are signs the housing market may be starting to recover.

The single-family housing market is starting to “bottom out” and “this summer we’ll see equilibrium,” he said.

MARK FLEMING

“We expect home prices to continue to decline into 2010 as economic conditions and excess housing inventories dampen prices,” Fleming said in the report. “Decreases are now being driven by rising unemployment and a high volume of distressed home sales.” Mark Fleming, the chief economist for First American CoreLogic Inc.  in Santa Ana, California.

The percentage of all U.S. homes empty and for sale, known as the vacancy rate, fell to 2.7 percent in the first quarter. It hit an all-time high of 2.9 percent in the first and fourth quarters of 2008, the Census Bureau said.

 DANN ADAMS

More U.S. consumers are falling behind on their mortgages, an indication that the housing market has yet to hit bottom.

Dann Adams, president of U.S. Information Systems for Equifax, reported that 7 percent of homeowners with mortgages were at least 30 days late on their loans in February, an increase of more than 50 percent from a year earlier.

He also said 39.8 percent of subprime borrowers were at least 30 days behind on their home mortgage loans, up 23.7 percent from last year.

“I’m trying to find optimism in these numbers, but I’m pretty hard pressed to do that despite a recent burst of relatively positive news that has fueled hope that the U.S. housing market has turned a corner” Adams said.

 SPOT POLL RESULTS

Central Showplace Spot Poll Results seem to reflect this optimistic but cautions outlook:

With the slow down of the US economy and the strength of the Canadian Loonie, it is a good time for Canadians to buy US Real Estate?

63% - Yes, now is a good opportunity to buy.

27% - Yes, but I’m waiting for prices to fall more.

10% - No way, it’s a bad time to buy.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 8:27 pm and is filed under International Real Estate Buyers, US Real Estate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.