When the market began to turn and there were so many people who for one reason or another were losing their homes, I was a bit put off by those buyers who were trying to capitalize on those losses. I soon realized that the buyers in today's market are very necessary to the continued movement of capital through the system. It is very exciting to see short sale and REO inventory being absorbed at a very fast pace. The months of inventory has steadily been decreasing over the last few months and the faster it is absorbed the faster we begin to stabalize our marketplace. On the other hand...The recent, near melt down of our financial markets, is the biggest crisis since the 1930's. In essence the financial markets froze last week. The bottom line is that just like many families these companies loaded up with debt and found themselves unable to borrow money to keep their business running. Time will tell how the government bail-out will affect the flow of money for new mortgage business. Rates have risen over last week but remain relatively low. With low rates and attractive prices, it seems as though the recent activity in home buying should continue.

Until local and state goverment do something about property taxes ... this will last longer.

I think there are other factors that may add to this market. The U.S. governments take over of Fannie & Freddie may cause an increase in short sale activity. Although they have temporarily frozen short sales, the government has no motivation to protect their porfolio for investors so they are more likely to get moving on bad properties and with the re-structuring of the REO process, which extends the foreclosure period. So, short sale activity may increase because there will be more time to process a short sale and there maybe more short sale properties on the market.

5 years ago, the community was full of folks feeling like the real estate market passed them by without a fair opportunity. Today, that same group of people have the chance to make good on what they missed then. Property can be found in the $200k and rates are hovering around 6%--Look around and take advantage of the 2nd chance, they don't come very often.

Great Website and easy to manouver. Jerry, you have always been the most upbeat and positive influance in the Real Estate world we work in. In this volatile environment you still keep a great prospective on the future. Keep up your excellent work, always love working with you.