[pig4bill]

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If you listen to most analysts they will say that things are going to get much worse and if you buy a house now the value is going to go down.

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But market plays a huge part in all this too. There are many places where property values are still rising. Housing markets are very much localized.

Generally its a bad idea to try to time real estate markets. Right now, prices are down and you can make some very good deals. So now is the time to buy.

Prices in your market may fall further in the short term, but that doesn't really matter too much for an investment property anyway. If you can get a good deal on an income property now, there is no reason that I can see not to snap it up now rather than passing in the hopes of making a better deal tomorrow.

If you're buying for your own use, I'd still argue that that you should buy now when prices are low rather than waiting. I'm not a proponent of trying to time real estate markets.

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I think from the latest numbers, the only area that's still going up is Seattle, possibly NYC. A few areas showed median price revisions going up, but if you dig into the numbers, they were skewed upward by a large number of cancellations in the low-end houses. Possibly because those buyers are usually marginal credit-wise anyway, and it's tougher for marginal people to get a loan.

Most areas are still headed down, and people like ceo's of a couple homebuilders are saying the bottom is a couple years out.