Buyers' Market

By no means am I a financial analyst...nor am I licensed to give advice to any clients. That is my disclaimer. I hold no responsibility for this post!

However, for the past 6 months, I've been telling a lot of people that we are in one of the best buyers' markets in a long time. In recent months, most investments have been a good place to park any available liquid cash that you have.

• If you've been thinking about purchasing property, do it now
  
• If you have cash in a savings account earning less than 3%, put it in the market
  
• If you've got any kind of retirement account (401k, 401b, etc.), increase your contribution percentage
  
• If you have an existing portfolio of funds, shift from conservative bond funds to those indexed to the DOW/S&P

The combination of the lending problems, the DOW hitting 14,000 just under a year ago, oil ballooning, and the weak dollar have all produced a big-time bear market...for both real estate and securities. Yeah, a lot of the news you read is doom and gloom, but if you're a smart/aggressive investor you get excited about those times, because that means there are tons of opportunities to "buy low". On the flip side, when things are humming along and news is positive, your portfolio may look great...but it's a bit harder to find the bargains.

In my estimation, this post might be a bit late as I think we're early in the wave of a pickup, on our way to a bull market. Just recently the DOW dropped to just under 11,000 and I don't foresee the market going back below that in the near future. I don't know if we'll get back to 14,000 any time soon, but I'm thinking that 12,000 and above should be the norm in the next 2-3 months. Oil has been a bit on the dip. The dollar has gained a little strength. And corporate earnings have been meeting expectations. The only holdout is real estate, as the picture isn't as optimistic. There's just way too much inventory on the market as well as a ton of loans that are still going to be adjusting for the next 2-4 years.

On the topic of the current real estate market, people have to remember that what caused this mess is ridiculously loose credit risk guidelines by lenders, which allowed way too many people to get into ARM mortgages that they couldn't afford when they adjusted. Those ARMs range anywhere from ~2 to 15 years, so they will continue to adjust upward. When they do, those homeowners try to sell, but they can't...thus foreclosure. I think the worst is behind us, but many lenders will feel the affects for the next 2-5 years. In addition, I have a feeling that mortgage rates will soon go up steadily and approach 10% in the next few years. This will create more barriers to entry for home buyers. Again, there's two main positives in this real estate market: a) buy now or b) re-invest in your property. Either way, invest and hunker down.

One last note on real estate. I still have very vivid picture in my head of a business trip to meet with a home equity executive at 5/3 Bank in Cincinnati. About 3 years ago he told us point blank, "there's a tidal wave of defaults and foreclosures coming...you better get ready". At the time, we thought he was crazy....nothing was wrong with real estate at that time. However, sure enough he was right. I'm sure a lot of other banks knew about it too. Obviously not all reacted to that in the right way.

Anyway, do your part to lift everyone up...it's not that bad out there! Put your money to work!