jeremyweber.com

December 1st, 2008 @ 9.45 pm

Unless you live under a rock, it seems the financial sky is falling everywhere I look. If you told me that I’d be paying under $2 per gallon for gasoline in five months just this past July, I would have laughed in your face, but prices for gasoline have fallen as low as $1.79 per gallon or lower.

(photo from Gasbuddy.com)
One year ago in October the stock market hit a record high on the Dow Jones, hitting over 14,000. Today the markey fell another 680 points to 8,149, with the lowest in recent weeks being around 7,500 late last month.

(photo from moneycentral.msn.com)
Two years ago the housing market had nowhere to go but up, and today no one sells a house without dropping their price by thousands of dollars.

(photo from housingbubble.jparsons.net)

(photo from housingbubble.jparsons.net)

A couple years ago I knew that either the housing market would have to come down, or I would never be able to buy a house. Well, I’m looking to buy a house, and hopefully in the next six months. At one point I knew I couldn’t afford anything in Howard County even though both Beverly and I work here, but now we’re looking in areas close to where we work. Unfortunately the big price drops seen in other parts of the country haven’t happened here, and the Baltimore market does seem to be lagging the rest of the country, but prices are coming down, if ever so slowly. What will happen next? Prices will keep coming down for now, but for how long? Will the bottom be next summer? 2010? Farther away? And once we hit bottom, when will prices start to come back up? As indicated by everything above, no one knows, certainly not the ones holding the reigns.

As Beverly and I look for a house to call home, we’re not looking for the largest place we can afford so we can turn a profit on the sale. We’re looking for a place we can live in until our jobs change or we have too many kids/ stuff to fit in it. For now, a 3 bedroom rancher with a garage will do. Sure, I’d like a huge garage and fancy kitchen, but a fixer upper with a carport will work.