This Just in, The Recession is over!

This past Sunday I took a new listing in Elkridge, Maryland. It is a nice house in great shape and is priced around $450,000. Within a half hour of entering the home in the computer, I got a call from a fellow agent to show the house and she delivered an offer to me that evening. In 25 years this may be the fastest that I have ever seen an offer come in on a listing of mine. And this seems to be happening on a lot of homes. The housing market in the Metro area is not just recovering but is "hot" and taking off. Purchasers have been flocking to open houses and I know for a fact that three new listings out of my office had multiple contracts presented this week after just going on the market. Only three months ago agents were crying about how nobody was showing their listings. Now, just a few months later my fellow agents are crying about the shortage of suitable houses to show their clients! It has been that way in Montgomery County for about a month now and I am seeing this market activity expand out to Howard, and Frederick Counties in the past two weeks or so. The DC market is a little different as it has been very hot since the middle of last year.

Well, I am a bit cautious as I know that there are still things that have to be sorted out in Europe and many parts of the US still have an oversupply of homes on the market. In addition, we still have good number of distressed homes that will come on the market both in the region and nationwide. However, the expanding market is to me a refection in a resurgence of consumer confidence. I firmly believe that where the housing market goes the economy will follow. Right now it looks pretty darn good to me and this is the first time in over four years that I can say that. Let's see how this plays out.