Half off the Half off Price

Some years ago I was shopping at a local Meijers store and heard the announcement over the public address system "attention shoppers, right now in our outdoor garden department, we are having a half off the half off sale". Well, if you do the math it comes to 75% off. But as good as 75% off is, the idea of half off the already discounted half off price, sent the shoppers streaming into the outdoor garden center...including myself. 75% off is good, but hey! half off the half off price is just to good to pass up! There I picked up decorative trees for $4.50, shrubs of all kinds for $2.00. Grasses for $1.75 and so on. I spent about $30 and pretty much landscaped my entire home and deck area. I thought I had been so lucky. Now those trees and shrubs are beautiful mature features of my landscaped areas of my home, and at a fraction of what it would have cost me now to do it.

Right now in real estate, the market is giving us a 'half off the half off sale' of properties. Incredible bargians at just a fraction of their original price. Two days ago I submitted an $28,000 offer for a home last sold in 2005 for $115,000. Two weeks ago I wrote an offer for $24,000 on a home that last sold in 2004 for $118,000. These are bank owned homes and take some time to get acceptance and close, but the offers are considered acceptable and likely to close soon. Every day I see opportunities for savy shoppers to cash in on these 'half off the half off prices'. I bought my first home in 1978 for $16,000. Incredible, that 32 years later, homes can be purchased for that price and less! I have heard some say that we are not at the bottom yet, and they may be right. But think of it. If the market declines another 10%, that means home prices at 10 - 15% of original price. That is close to actually giving them away, how much farther can there be decline when there are homes at the 25% of previous pricing. Even if such does happen, with a $20,000 purchase that computes to $2,000. Passing up a "half off the half off price" on a solid home with great upside potential, because the market might dip another 5% or so, just doesn't make sense. This is the time to reinvest in real estate. High inventories, very low interest rates, buyer incentives. Does a buyer opportunity get any better? At this point, I wouldn't miss out on a solid home purchase, because I thought, possibly, maybe, could be, get better. Just like the Meijer sale, half off the half off price, won't last forever.