After moving to the Raleigh area in January of 2007, I spent some time looking for a home to buy for when my family would eventually join me. By the fall of 2007, and only after simply observing development after development of brand new homes priced at $500k, $600k, $800k and higher, and this in just one part of the county, I concluded then that there was a large oversupply of at least expensive homes, and likely more moderately priced homes as well, in the Wake County area.
This is why this response to my op-ed on the Wake County housing market floors me.
The year 2009 was a wake-up call for real estate practitioners within our market.
The author, Stacey Peter Anfindsen, is the Treasurer for the Raleigh Regional Association of Realtors, as well as the author of the TARR Report. When I would discuss this oversupply with agents in this area, my observation was always dismissed with statements such as that even though the market was soft, it was coming back. Some referenced the TARR Report as the source for their overly optimistic projection.
So how could "real estate practitioners" have needed a "wake-up call" about this oversupply when the evidence was apparent through casual observation at least as far back as 2007?
Comments