Speculation is growing among analysts and home-building executives that the battered housing industry finally may be approaching a bottom, at least in terms of inventory of both new and existing homes. It could be the first sign that the hemorrhaging in the housing sector could be approaching an end.
But if history is any indication, home prices may not start to bounce back for at least two years, and at least one analyst thinks it could take as long as four years.

In the past, new-home sales typically started increasing about a year after supply and demand fundamentals stabilized, while home prices took at least two years to tick up, according to James F. Wilson, director of research and senior analyst with JMP Securities LLC of San Francisco. Bob Curran, a managing director at Fitch Ratings Ltd. in New York, said that pricing could take even longer to rebound this time because inventory levels are far higher than they were during past downturns.

Mr. Wilson upgraded the home-building group last week on the belief that the housing market is now “bouncing along the bottom,” at least from an inventory perspective.

This stabilization in inventory, however, doesn’t mean defaults will dissipate or home prices will stop falling over the next year. They won’t.

In fact, analysts and economists are predicting that home prices will plummet at least another 15% on average this year.

Nevertheless, Mr. Wilson said that inventory is a key metric in helping the market predict when the bloodletting will end.

(Article from InvestmentNew.com, written by Janet Morrissey)

Bidabings Take:->

Well I looked at Single Family sales for the Southeast Florida Tri County Area in the local multiple listing service and found that there is a sharp increase in sales for the last three months consecutively. According to my findings there were 1391 closed sales in January – 1528 in February – and 1871 in March.

So congrats are in order for South Florida agents. While I have not heard a definitive report about the market getting better, you can see it for yourself in the report section of the MLXchange. Now this doesn’t mean that prices will rise anytime soon but maybe they will stop dropping. My advice to realtors is to remember that these sales are comps and they should represent what you are able to get in this market. My guess is that these listing were priced right. As always if your listings aren’t selling, get a price reduction.

I recently accompanied a South Florida agent to explain the BidaBing platform to her seller. Once she understood how the site works she agreed to an $80,000 reserve in writing. That’s a price reduction! Did BidaBing help? I think so.

Hello to all BidaBingers. My name is Alexander and I am in charge of most of the site content and relaying our users suggestions and concerns to our management team. Let me start by telling you that even though I have never been in the real estate business, I am very excited about my new job and the application that I am representing. It is such a powerful tool for realtors and buyers, at such a convenient time that I cant help but be excited for our users as well. One of the things that I want you to know is that I will do whatever it takes to use your suggestion to implement new functions and constantly improve your experience.

Even though you are seeing a great tool already, there are dozens of improvements and additional features already on the way. You can expect to see changes in our site in the days to come. For now I will be answering questions in the support section of the site as well as monitoring this blog. Please know that this is a great time to get to know our site and use it in your real estate business or investment business. There are great incentives for our first group of users. So join today and let me know if I can help you better understand how the site can benefit you personally. You will be glad you did.

…Alexander Aldrick