Real Estate Market CRASH!?
You have probably heard someone say, “the real estate market is about to crash” or “this is gonna be 2008 all over again”… First, let’s make sure you know what contributed to the housing crash in 2008. Predatory lending, subprime mortgages and homes being leveraged above value is what lead to the bubble burst. When you look at the National Association of REALTORS historical data of home sales – the national real estate market saw property values begin to plummet by 15-20% when the bubble burst. Those same home values continued to decline for the next 4-5 years. They finally hit the bottom after approximately a 35% overall average decrease in property values.
Predatory lending is when a lender seeks to take advantage of a borrower and tie them to unfair lending practices, such as significantly higher interest rates, unrealistic payoff terms, exorbitant closing fees, high pre-payment penalties, or large balloon payments
Subprime mortgages refers to mortgages that were issued to borrowers with below average credit ratings, or to borrowers with over-extended credit (a high debt to income ratio)
Over-leveraged home values means that mortgages were issued for more than the home was worth. This meant homes were being leveraged for 110%, or more, than the real market value for the property in question
What about Western NY?
The Western New York real estate market has not followed the same National trends. In fact, in 2008, the numbers show that in both Erie & Niagara counties combined, property values actually INCREASED approximately 2% for residential single family homes. A similar increase continued for the next several years resulting in an average of 2.8% increase over the next 5 years. The Western New York housing market has always been extremely stable. Western New York home owners did also fall victim to the predatory lending practices – yet fortunately did not experience the decrease in values the rest of the country saw at the time.
What to expect next...
It is our professional opinion that the Western New York real estate market will continue to follow our historical trends. While the last several years have seen a very large increase in home values, we expect these values to level off. In the next couple of years, we anticipate the local market to move back into the slight fluctuations seen pre-2015. We are already seeing a shift in the market demonstrating this as well.
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Myriad Team at