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"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt"
M for M, Act i, Sc.5 - Shakespeare
I suppose there is good reason in many parts of the country to have fear regarding the housing market and financial tightening. Where prices are falling precipitiously and no one knows how far and for how long, it would take a tanked up gambler to fearlessly plunge forward and buy.
However, there are parts of the country where fear may be the main bottleneck, where fundmentals are sound and prices are reasonable and demand sans fear would be strong. Yet, fear caused by the national news, by uncertainty in the face of recession, by the sheer weight of doom, has stymied the market and fed on itself, and now seems to be buckling the stubbornness of sellers so that prices stagger, weaken and fall -- not because the market in these areas has any underlying fundamental cracks, but because fear has shackled the will to act.
Recent moves by the Fed and the adminstration's stimulus package might relieve some of the fear, but the psychological warfare being played between the political parties this election year will be maddening enough to make us all more likely to kill than to buy.
If the fear worsens and prices fall to the point there is no rational explanation except fear, and in the absence of fear all normal people would come to their senses, it may be time to execute the Tennis Ball Investment Strategy that some used here in Savannah during the eighties when downtown was at the nadir of its deterioration -- you stand where the buildings are the most crowded, take a tennis ball, throw it as hard as you can so that it makes a great arch, then whatever it hits, buy it. |