Charleston SC Metro Real Estate: "Doom & Gloom," or "The Sky is Falling, The Sky is Falling"

Every time we turn on the television "information experts" in the news are there to tell just how bad the housing market has become.  As a matter of fact, I thought I was dreaming a few nights ago when when a local news station reported that the Charleston SC market is actually doing good so far this year.  I was shocked that they would dare run such good news to the mass public.  

First, the house market is not bad!  It is simply adjusting (that's what happens in a market economy).  This market is great for buyers and can still be good for sellers in certain areas!  Areas such as our Charleston, SC market!

Today I stumbled across a few quotes from the doom and gloom artists of the past that all but wrote off the chances of a housing resurgence.  Sound familiar?

• “The prices of houses seem to have reached a plateau, and there is reasonable expectancy that prices will decline.” (Time, December 1, 1947)
• “Houses cost too much for the mass market. Today’s average price is around $8,000—out of reach for two thirds of all buyers.” (Science Digest, April 1948)
• “The goal of owning a home seems to be getting beyond the reach of more and more Americans. The typical new house today costs $28,000.” (Business Week, September 4, 1969)
• “The era of easy profits in real estate may be drawing to a close.” (Money, January 1981)
• “Most economists agree…[a home] will become little more than a roof and a tax deduction, certainly not the lucrative investment it was through much of the 1980s.” (Money, April 1986)
• “The baby boomers are all housed now. They are being followed by the baby bust. By 2005, real housing prices will sit 40 percent below where they are today.” (Harvard economist Gregory Mankiw, “The Baby Boom, the Baby Bust, and the Coming Collapse of Housing Prices.” Journal of Regional Economics, Fall 1989)
• “A home is where the bad investment is.” (San Francisco Examiner, November 17, 1996)
•  “But the real question is, how will [housing prices] look longer term? As I’ve said in the past, I do not think that housing values will be higher five to ten years from now.” (Yale economist Robert Shiller, quoted in Newsweek, January 27, 2005)