When is the right time to start house hunting?
If you are waiting for the market to “bottom out” to begin your home search, you may be missing a golden opportunity to take advantage of the huge selection of properties that are on the market right now. Despite various media reports of a mortgage crisis and an impending recession, 2007 was the fifth-best performance on record for existing home sales, even while inventories rose somewhat and prices flattened out or, in some cases, declined slightly. Home buyers who have felt priced out of the purchasing market in the past few years now have a chance to buy a really nice home and mortgage interest rates are supporting that opportunity as well. The Northern New England Real Estate Network data from the Multiple Listing Service in New Hampshire shows that sales figures from 2006 to 2007 have changed marginally. For example, their data shows that Rockingham county showed a total of 2,440 homes sold in 2006 and 2,460 homes sold in 2007, actually a slight increase. In the same county, the a
