Week in Review – the good, the bad and the ugly.
by Tom on October 19, 2007
in Uncategorized
Well, we made it to the end of another work week. If you’ve been following the reports, you know it’s been a challenging week from an economic news standpoint. I’m not going to go into the details on those here (see my previous post for information on that). Instead I’m going to throw a few thoughts in about the good, the bad and the ugly that we’ve seen this week:
The Good – Fifth Third announced earnings reports this morning that were ahead of 3rd quarter last year. When you compare that to what some of the “big guys” did for this quarter, not only did we not lose money, we actually made more than last year. That’s a good thing.
The markets have gone from anticipating that the Fed won’t lower rates the end of this month to anticpating that they will lower rates. That’s a good thing, but the reason that switched is when we get to the
Bad – there were just a lot of really challenging economic and news reports about the impact of the credit crunch, home sales, oil prices, job losses, and such. I wish that I could say that it wasn’t so challenging, but in reality, I can’t. Keep in mind that many of these reports are national and don’t reflect the individualized numbers of the area. If anyone has reports from the local Realtor board on sales, listings, inventory and such and can share them with me, I’d love to share them with others.
The Ugly – I’ve used the baseball image stating that we’re in maybe the 2nd inning of a ballgame with this challenging times. A couple of people (a lot more notable and influential people than I am) have used that analogy and have all said that we’ve got quite some time for this market to work itself into a healthier status. I’ve heard estimates from reputable sources saying spring of 2009 is optimistic to as far as 2012 before the market. That’s ugly.
We’re, frankly, in the beginning stages of a seismic shift in the housing and real estate markets. Michigan led the way into the housing doldrums so I don’t expect that the price swings and the volatility will be as drastic here as it is in other areas. However, it’s going to be the type of market that requires adaptability.
There’s a saying, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got.” I don’t think that applies in the real estate and finance fields right now. The old models don’t work right now. We need to look at new and inovative ways to do business. Sales are still happening. I talked to one builder this morning who’s business is down 11% from last year. He’s quite pleased with that, and frankly I would be too.
I’d love to hear from you on what you think is going to work in this new market. I’ll be sharing some ideas that I’m working on as time allows……
