With stocks being hammered across the world since Friday, the price of oil in the gutter, and volatility through the roof, pundits are starting to get somber about the market’s prospects.
If we’re in the beginning of a serious bear market, will Seattle’s crazy real estate market finally start to slow?
One of the major causes of the last real estate bubble was capital flight from stocks into real estate, so it is possible that a crash in the markets will just heat things up even more. However, if a tanking stock market takes down the overall economy this year, it seems unlikely that already-high home prices will be able to keep increasing. Also, I haven’t done the in-depth research on this, but I feel like markets like Seattle and the Bay Area that are home to lots of tech companies probably have a soaring stock market to thank for much of the recent frenzy in the real estate market.
What say you? Assuming for a moment that the recent dip in the market isn’t just a temporary setback, will a bear market apply the brakes to Seattle’s speeding real estate market?