The real estate market is always shifting. One minute you see a sudden surge of prices and mortgages and the rates seem to plummet within a week. However, despite these fluctuations, the real estate market continues to grow. The housing market has gone up by more than 11.4% in the last ten years. While this percentage may not seem monumental, its effect on the market is real.
If you’re planning to move to California, the Bay Area is a good place to look for a new home. You can hope to find a lot of diversity in prices as well as locations and types of property here.
But before you begin house hunting, it can help to know about Bay Area real estate market history.
A Brief History of Bay Area Real Estate
If you look at the past 30 years, you’ll note that the Bay Area has had some noticeable ups and downs as far as real estate value is concerned. According to a Paragon Real Estate Group report, market gains and highs have lasted for approximately 5 to 7 years, and dips and declines usually last approximately 3-4 years. However, this is not something that you should make your buying decisions on.
While people tend to expect that the market is going to stay the same, whether up or down, you need to understand that real estate faces some serious fluctuations. While the rates may not change every year, they can increase or decrease while you’re still paying your mortgage.
The real estate market may seem to be drowning at one point of time, population and families grow, and inflation builds during those years. People who didn’t want to own a house when they were single want to now because they’re building a family. There are always new homebuyers on the horizon.
Unfortunately, this is a never-ending cycle that we never seem to learn from. Whatever’s causing the inflammation or depreciation this time, fluctuation is a constant behavior of the real estate market that you simply cannot escape from.
Crashes like the one that happened in 2008 are abnormal, devastating crashes happen very infrequently. Instead, it’s like the built-up pressure is slowly let go of, which causes a market decline. Which is profitable if you’re the buyer and not a seller.
What Should You Know as a Buyer?
Accurate predictions about whether the market will depreciate or inflate next cannot be made. But real estate trend suggest that if you own a house for 5 years or more, you’re almost guaranteed to sell for the same price you bought for or more.