King 5 News ran a great little piece yesterday that demonstrates just how ridiculous it is to call falling home prices “doom and gloom.”
The flat real estate market has been a source of concern for many.
But for some charities like Habitat for Humanity, it’s providing a long awaited opportunity to advance their cause.
After years of being priced out of the market, Habitat for Humanity closed on the purchase of 4 and a half acres in Renton on Monday.
It’s not much to look at now, but in due time 41 new town homes will be built there.
…
“We’re hoping if there is a silver lining in this downturn in the real estate market, that maybe it is for low income families to be able to afford to buy homes,” [Habitat for Humanity spokesman Tom] Granger said.Last month Cory Lynn Berrios and her family moved into a new townhouse which she and her husband were able to help build and buy thanks to Habitat for Humanity of east King County.
“Silver lining?” Mr. Granger, affordability is the main event. And not just affordability for charities building cheap townhomes for low-income families. How about middle-class, responsible people that have been priced out of the market thanks to the housing bubble? How about modest single-family homes that shot up to $500,000 or more, driven by the mass hysteria of a pyramid scheme, that are now heading back down to earth?
This housing downturn would probably be better described as a return to housing market sanity, which I contend is good for society as a whole.
(Deborah Feldman, KING 5 News, 04.01.2008)