1.    Don’t try to time the real estate market. Buy and sell in the same economy. Trying to create or carve out an arbitrage in a volatile market is where people get burned. Unless you're an economist, an actuary, or write financial instruments for a living, arbitrage is fickle. One of the important ignored nuances around this concept is that if you’re selling, and your sale is challenging, then that will proportionately affect your sentiment... [read more]

Last week I started increasing my real estate market reporting to include weekly updates. Reverse engineering: My secondary objective for this increased coverage is to learn what a recovery scenario might look like, and to be able to understand the shape it will take. Until that happens, I'll likely continue this practice. My primary objective for this increased coverage is to monitor the important indicators that we can use in an attempt to determine whether nor not we... [read more]