Thursday, August 18, 2022
Chuck Marunde, J.D., Broker/Owner 360-775-5424


iRealty Virtual Brokers


Broker/Consultant

Washington State

SUBSCRIBE
  • Home
  • Search MLS
    • Sequim MLS
    • Sequim MLS Map Search
    • Port Angeles MLS
    • Port Townsend MLS
    • San Juan Islands MLS
    • All Islands MLS
    • How to Search the Sequim MLS
  • Videos
    • Sequim Videos Q&A
    • Buyer Videos Part 1
    • Buyer Videos Part 2
    • Buyer Videos Part 3
    • Buyer Videos Part 4
    • Living in Sequim Video Channel
  • Books
    The Coming Real Estate Crash

    The Coming Real Estate Crash

    The Sequim Real Estate Trilogy

    The Sequim Real Estate Trilogy

    Sequim Real Estate Videos for Buyers: The Ultimate Video Guide for Sequim Washington

    Sequim Real Estate Videos for Buyers: The Ultimate Video Guide for Sequim Washington

    Escaping California to the San Juan Islands

    Escaping California to the San Juan Islands

    Get Healthy

    Get Healthy: Increase Natural Immunities, Cellular Energy, Deep Sleep & Decrease Blood Pressure

    Manage Your Energy

    Manage Your Energy Not Your Time

    Real Estate Brokerage From Bricks and Mortar to High Tech Virtuality

    Real Estate Brokerage From Bricks and Mortar to High Tech Virtuality

    7 Myths of Selling Your Home

    7 Myths of Selling Your Home

    Buying Your Retirement Home

    Buying Your Retirement Home

    The New World of Marketing for Real Estate Agents

    The New World of Marketing for Real Estate Agents

    Sequim Real Estate For Buyers: Free eBook Updates Forever

    Sequim Real Estate For Buyers: Free eBook Updates Forever

    24 Secrets of Buying a Country Home

    24 Secrets of Buying a Country Home

    Sequim Real Estate: A Buyer’s Guide

    Sequim Real Estate: A Buyer’s Guide

    Living Off The Grid iin Alaska

    Living Off The Grid in Alaska

    Buying and Selling Real Estate

    Buying and Selling Real Estate

    Trending Tags

      • Sequim Real Estate for Buyers (Free eBook Updates Forever)
      • Sequim Real Estate: A Buyer’s Guide (Paperback)
      • Escaping California to The San Juan Islands
      • Buying & Selling Real Estate in The Rain Shadow
      • Real Estate From Bricks & Mortar to High Tech Virtuality
      • The Seven Myths of Selling Your Home
      • Buying Your Retirement Home
      • The New World of Marketing for Real Estate Agents
    • Agents
      • Professional Buyer’s Agent
      • Flat Fee Listing Broker
    Tetralogy
    No Result
    View All Result
    • Login
    • Register
    • Home
    • Search MLS
      • Sequim MLS
      • Sequim MLS Map Search
      • Port Angeles MLS
      • Port Townsend MLS
      • San Juan Islands MLS
      • All Islands MLS
      • How to Search the Sequim MLS
    • Videos
      • Sequim Videos Q&A
      • Buyer Videos Part 1
      • Buyer Videos Part 2
      • Buyer Videos Part 3
      • Buyer Videos Part 4
      • Living in Sequim Video Channel
    • Books
      The Coming Real Estate Crash

      The Coming Real Estate Crash

      The Sequim Real Estate Trilogy

      The Sequim Real Estate Trilogy

      Sequim Real Estate Videos for Buyers: The Ultimate Video Guide for Sequim Washington

      Sequim Real Estate Videos for Buyers: The Ultimate Video Guide for Sequim Washington

      Escaping California to the San Juan Islands

      Escaping California to the San Juan Islands

      Get Healthy

      Get Healthy: Increase Natural Immunities, Cellular Energy, Deep Sleep & Decrease Blood Pressure

      Manage Your Energy

      Manage Your Energy Not Your Time

      Real Estate Brokerage From Bricks and Mortar to High Tech Virtuality

      Real Estate Brokerage From Bricks and Mortar to High Tech Virtuality

      7 Myths of Selling Your Home

      7 Myths of Selling Your Home

      Buying Your Retirement Home

      Buying Your Retirement Home

      The New World of Marketing for Real Estate Agents

      The New World of Marketing for Real Estate Agents

      Sequim Real Estate For Buyers: Free eBook Updates Forever

      Sequim Real Estate For Buyers: Free eBook Updates Forever

      24 Secrets of Buying a Country Home

      24 Secrets of Buying a Country Home

      Sequim Real Estate: A Buyer’s Guide

      Sequim Real Estate: A Buyer’s Guide

      Living Off The Grid iin Alaska

      Living Off The Grid in Alaska

      Buying and Selling Real Estate

      Buying and Selling Real Estate

      Trending Tags

        • Sequim Real Estate for Buyers (Free eBook Updates Forever)
        • Sequim Real Estate: A Buyer’s Guide (Paperback)
        • Escaping California to The San Juan Islands
        • Buying & Selling Real Estate in The Rain Shadow
        • Real Estate From Bricks & Mortar to High Tech Virtuality
        • The Seven Myths of Selling Your Home
        • Buying Your Retirement Home
        • The New World of Marketing for Real Estate Agents
      • Agents
        • Professional Buyer’s Agent
        • Flat Fee Listing Broker
      No Result
      View All Result
      iRealty Virtual Brokers
      No Result
      View All Result
      Home Sequim Real Estate Market

      No One Can Call a Market Bottom

      Chuck Marunde by Chuck Marunde
      November 22, 2011
      Reading Time: 5 mins read
      0 0
      1

      Buyers have been asking, “Are we at a market bottom?  Are real estate prices stablized or are they going down more?”  No buyer wants to pay too much for a home, so these are intelligent questions any discerning retiree is going to ask.  But these questions have been relevant for a couple of years, and to this date no one has been able to call a market bottom or “time the market.”  Here are my thoughts on why no one has been able to call a market bottom.

      Market Bottom
      Market Bottom and Market Timing

      In the context of investing in the stock market, there are those who claim that you cannot “time the market,” and these are the financial advisers who recommend investing for the long term.  Long term fund managers and financial advisers rely primarily on fundamental analysis.  On the other hand, it cannot be denied that there are many who have become very wealthy by “timing the market” by buying and selling at the right times, or at least often enough to come out very profitably.  These folks tend to rely more on technical analysis by reading charts.  Their argument is that a chart represents all investment variables and that’s why chart patterns have meaning.  Market timing, whether it is in stocks, options, or commodities, is not a game for the feint of heart.  If you want a stressful two hours, try flipping volatile options in a wild market.

      Market Bottom and Real Estate

      Real estate does not have as many players jumping in and out of the market every hour (or every second) of every day like the stock market, and you would think that identifying a market pattern or a market bottom would not be so complicated in the real estate market.  But no one has been able to call a market bottom.  I have been very cautious and have not called a market bottom, and here is why.  There are several key elements to accurately predicting a market bottom, and if you have credible information on a majority of these elements, you can draw some intelligent conclusions regarding the market.  Right now there are key elements that are still wildly unpredictable.  Consider these totally unpredictable events that are major determinants in accurately predicting when we will be at a market bottom in real estate prices.  I’ll start with the big picture and drill down to our local market. 

      1.  The state of the global economy is radically uncertain.  The debt crisis in Greece is an unfolding economic nightmare the world has never witnessed.  The European community is on the precipice of who knows what?  The world’s most educated economists cannot agree what will happen.

      2.  The International bankers are not sure if there will be a world recession or a slow turn around.  There are simply too many variables for bankers to measure the risk in their portfolios.  So intimately interconnected are International markets, a single country devaluing their currency would set off a chain of events that would continue to reverberate across the world and cause even more unpredictable results.

      3.  If one or more European countries goes bankrupt and defaults on its debt, no one has been able to unwind all the implications for the U.S. economy.  

      4.  The U.S. debt crisis continues to grow, and politicians are playing Russian Roulette with our nation’s budget.  More downgrades of the U.S. credit rating are being discussed.  Like a runaway train, a massive financial collision seems imminent, but no computer model and no super committee is able to tell us what will happen.  We, the American people and non-government workers, are the hostages at risk.  Meanwhile, the middle class is being systematically wiped out.

      5.  The U.S. real estate market is still in shambles.  The extent of the mortgage fraud is still unfolding.  And by fraud, I am not referring to the con men who cheated on mortgage apps.  I’m referring to the crony capitalism and the fraud committed by politicians, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives and board members, investment houses on Wall Street, mortgage companies and banks, and, of course, consumers only too willing to jump on the band wagon of free money.  My economics prof was right.  There’s no such thing as a free lunch. No one has been able to draw a flow chart showing just how deep and wide this disaster goes or how long the foreclosure market will last.  We’ve never been here before.  How will this effect new home construction and existing home sales in the years ahead?  No one knows, but it’s not pretty.

      6.  On a local level, the Sequim real estate market relies heavily on buyers from out of state, and many buyers must sell their other homes before they can buy in Sequim.  This is true in many local markets across the country.  The local real estate market depends heavily on the health of the real estate market in other states.  This creates uncertainty.

      These are all extraordinary uncertainties, and when you put all of these uncertainties on the table, it is no wonder that no one can call a market bottom in real estate prices.  That is an impossibility.  Could someone guess correctly?  Yes, just as someone will win next month’s lottery, and the odds are about the same.

      Market Bottom and Buying Your Retirement Home

      What can you do?  I have written elsewhere that we need to separate the house from the market.  In other words, if you are retiring and buying a home in Sequim, whether you buy the right home at the best possible price will depend more on intelligent negotiating and wise decision making in your own financial world.  In my opinion, no one knows for sure if real estate prices are at a bottom or will drop further in the next year, but I can tell you with a high level of accuracy if the home you want to buy is a reasonable price, a great price, or an extraordinary price, and I can tell you if that home will be sellable in the years ahead, and how secure you will be in this home in this location.  I help clients buy homes that are wise investments.  I don’t specialize in getting buyers to overpay for a home.  For example, I recently sold a couple a gorgeous home for $325,000 that has a FMV (fair market value) of $425,000 even in this market, and cost the seller about $525,000 to build.  Whatever the national and global markets may do, whatever the U.S. national real estate market may do in the coming years, these clients made a wise investment in a home that also happens to be their dream retirement home.  

      My feeling is that no one has a crystal ball to be able to call a market bottom, but you don’t need to call a market bottom to make a wise investment in a retirement home, if you do your due diligence and work with a professional buyer’s agent who knows how to make it happen for you.

      Last Updated on November 22, 2011 by Chuck Marunde

      Tags: Market Bottom
      ShareTweet
      Chuck Marunde

      Chuck Marunde

      Chuck grew up in remote Alaska, graduated from the University of Alaska with a degree in Economics and Teacher Certification, and after teaching high school for two years, went to law school at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. He served four years as a Captain and JAG in the USAF at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas. After practicing real estate law for 20 years in Washington, Chuck founded iRealty Virtual Brokers covering Sequim and the beautiful Olympic Peninsula. He is the author of 2,200 real estate articles and a dozen real estate books, and he produced over 100 real estate videos. Chuck combined his love for real estate and technology to create a massive Internet presence, and his articles and videos and books have been viewed by millions. Chuck is a well recognized real estate expert and his counsel is sought by other brokers and practicing attorneys around the country. Buyers from New York to Hawaii and from Florida to Alaska seek him out to retain him as their buyer's agent, and home owners around the State of Washington seek him out because of his new Flat Fee Listing Service. 

      Related Posts

      Sequim Real Estate Market Turns Down
      Sequim Market Reports

      Sequim Real Estate Market Turns Down

      July 13, 2022
      13
      Are Buyers Competing to Bid Prices Up?
      Sequim Real Estate Market

      Are Buyers Competing to Bid Prices Up?

      May 23, 2021
      37
      Sequim Home
      Sequim Real Estate Market

      Are We At The Top Of The Real Estate Market?

      April 14, 2021
      15
      Backup Offer
      Sequim Real Estate Market

      Should I Submit a Backup Offer in this Market?

      November 16, 2020
      4
      Sequim Real Estate Market
      Buyer's Agent

      Sequim Real Estate Market

      August 23, 2020
      4
      Sequim Real Estate Market
      Sequim Market Reports

      A Sequim Real Estate Market Update by Video

      June 17, 2020
      3
      Next Post
      Covenants

      Buying Sequim Property with Covenants (CC&Rs)

      Sequim Homes Sold This Winter

      Comments 1

      1. Amanda and Jerry says:
        10 years ago

        Just wanted to drop a note here and let you know that we are avid readers of your Sequim Real Estate Blog. We are not evening moving to Sequim, but we still read your blog.

        Reply

      Leave a Reply Cancel reply

      Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

      I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

      This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

      "I wish I read this before selling my
      home. I could have saved $50,000." Andy 

      Search 2,200 Articles by Category

      • Trending
      • Comments
      • Latest
      Buyer and Seller

      What if a Buyer and Seller Talk to Each Other?

      August 5, 2022
      10 Best Places to Retire

      Why is Sequim One Of The 10 Best Places To Retire?

      September 22, 2019
      Prorate Propane

      How to Prorate Propane at Closing

      August 15, 2015
      Terminate a real estate contract

      How to Terminate a Real Estate Contract

      December 31, 2020
      print newspapers

      Print Newspapers Losing Readers to the Internet

      42
      FNMA Killing Transactions by Requiring Private Road Maintenance Agreements

      FNMA Killing Transactions by Requiring Private Road Maintenance Agreements

      31
      Buyer and Seller

      What if a Buyer and Seller Talk to Each Other?

      28

      What Documents Does a Buyer Need to Buy Real Estate?

      24
      Listing Broker

      True Story: Caveat Emptor or Buyer Buyer

      August 18, 2022
      NWMLS v OLS

      Why the NWMLS is Far Better Than the OLS for Sellers in the Sequim Market

      August 16, 2022
      Marunde-Books

      Marunde Books: I’m Having Far Too Much Fun Here

      August 15, 2022
      Financing Contingency

      What does “The Financing Contingency Shall Survive the Closing Date” Mean?

      August 12, 2022

      Subscribe to Chuck 
      Marunde's Newsletter

      Popular Stories

      • Buyer and Seller

        What if a Buyer and Seller Talk to Each Other?

        0 shares
        Share 0 Tweet 0
      • Why is Sequim One Of The 10 Best Places To Retire?

        0 shares
        Share 0 Tweet 0
      • How to Prorate Propane at Closing

        0 shares
        Share 0 Tweet 0
      • How to Terminate a Real Estate Contract

        0 shares
        Share 0 Tweet 0
      • The Sequim Blue Hole – A Map of Rainfall

        0 shares
        Share 0 Tweet 0

      Leaving Comments   I hope you’ll join our community and leave comments from time to time. Please realize that comments, if approved, will be public, so do not use any personal information you don’t want broadcast to the world, and definitely don’t leave a phone number. Comments are not the place to ask Chuck Marunde for help in finding a home. To do that, call or text Chuck.

      Neither Chuck Marunde nor iRealty Virtual Brokers offers legal advice on this site. Please Read Our Legal Disclaimer

      If you’d like to view how we protect your privacy, see our Privacy Policy.

      iRealty Virtual Brokers

      iRealty Virtual Brokers reaches out to buyers around the United States with thousands of online articles, MLS sites, apps, real estate books, videos, and much more specifically to help buyers find all the answers to their questions. We also now offer a flat fee commission listing service that saves sellers tens of thousands of dollars.

      iRealty Virtual Brokers
      125 Olympic Ranch Ln
      Sequim, Washington 98382
      360-775-5424

      Search the entire NWMLS in Washington State:

      Sequim-Homes.com

      The largest independent real estate blog in the State of Washington with over 2,200 articles totally focused on our client’s best interest, their needs and their curiosity. All free and 100% reliable. I’m here if you need me, 

      © 2006-2022 iRealty Virtual Brokers and Chuck Marunde

      No Result
      View All Result
      • Home
      • Search MLS
        • Sequim MLS
        • Sequim MLS Map Search
        • Port Angeles MLS
        • Port Townsend MLS
        • San Juan Islands MLS
        • All Islands MLS
        • How to Search the Sequim MLS
      • Videos
        • Sequim Videos Q&A
        • Buyer Videos Part 1
        • Buyer Videos Part 2
        • Buyer Videos Part 3
        • Buyer Videos Part 4
        • Living in Sequim Video Channel
      • Books
        • Sequim Real Estate for Buyers (Free eBook Updates Forever)
        • Sequim Real Estate: A Buyer’s Guide (Paperback)
        • Escaping California to The San Juan Islands
        • Buying & Selling Real Estate in The Rain Shadow
        • Real Estate From Bricks & Mortar to High Tech Virtuality
        • The Seven Myths of Selling Your Home
        • Buying Your Retirement Home
        • The New World of Marketing for Real Estate Agents
      • Agents
        • Professional Buyer’s Agent
        • Flat Fee Listing Broker

      © 2006-2022 iRealty Virtual Brokers and Chuck Marunde

      Welcome Back!

      Login to your account below

      Forgotten Password? Sign Up

      Create New Account!

      Fill the forms bellow to register

      *By registering into our website, you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.
      All fields are required. Log In

      Retrieve your password

      Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

      Log In
      This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.