As a young inidividual in his mid 20′s looking to purcahse a home in the next couple of years, I will be honest that I welcome the drop in home prices over the last year. Most of us are aware that the prices of homes were way too high and increasing at too much of an alarming rate to really hold on to the momentum of the last couple of years. Realistically, a buyer should be looking at homes or condominiums worth 3 to 4 times their current income and in places like New York City, San Francisco, London and Vancouver, that was becoming an impossible reality.
Yet, what’s interesting about this recent Globe and Mail article is buyers in my hometown of Toronto still feel like prices haven’t fallen nearly enough as they should. And that may very well be true. But one must look at how sharp the price increases were in the first place. A visit to guava.ca instantly shows that Toronto never went through the same kind of bubble many other places did. What goes up must come down. But the slower it went up, the slower it is likely to come down. With that being said, the unfortunate reality of our current housing situation is some individuals must take the hit (as unfair as it may be) and let’s face it anyone who bought a home in the last couple of years and is looking to sell now as an investment is foolish. It will (and rightfully should) take many years for the housing prices to reach what they were 2 years ago (though i’m sure there will be new housing bubbles to take place of the old ones when the recession ends).
