When I got into the Mortgage Business in January 1991 the real estate market in Eastern Pennsylvania had died. We had gone from a crazy frenzied high of 1988 to a low in only 3 years. The heightened craze was caused by in influx of people moving in from New Jersey and New York because we built a new major highway (I-78), which made commuting much easier. The less expensive housing prices were possible for these commuters. This time we had a much longer frenzied period of increasing prices topping out in 2007, this time hitting a low in 2010-2011. The main catalysts for this crazed market were the event of 911 and the completion of a connection between I-78 and Route 33. These are some similarities to our current situation.
There are some distinct differences between these two housing markets. I remember doing a mortgage for a couple in October 1991, who were moving into the Pocono Area from Seattle Washington. They had lived in Seattle for 9 months and made a 30% profit on their home before moving to our area. Another gentleman sold his house in Las Vegas in 2 days before moving into the Lehigh Valley. Three other buyers had sold their homes in Boston, Atlanta and Orlando, respectively with little or no trouble. They each had made significant money on their sales and experienced a prosperous housing market. There were pockets of areas throughout the country doing extremely well, while our area, and other parts of the United States were doing poorly.
Today, the entire United States is in a bad housing market. It seems that values are down significantly, with some areas (Detroit, Las Vegas, Florida, California) being hit harder than most. Most of these areas are dependent upon one major industry feeding their economy, such as the Auto Industry in Detroit. The one good thing for our region is that we don't seem to be hit as badly as some of these other areas, and this time our Corporate Diversity will keep our region from being as greatly affected as other parts of the U.S.
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