Good Market? Bad Market? Keeping Things in Perspective

When you look at the numbers for the Greenville, SC Real Estate market you could make a case that the market is good or that the market is bad. It's all in how you spin it. There have been almost 20% less homes sell so far this year when compared to 2006. At the same time, there have been almost 4% more homes sell this year compared to 2004. The market must be kept in perspective to fully understand everything that is happening. The amount of Greenville area homes sold in 2006 and 2007 was very high compared to 2000 through 2005. 2008 has been one of the best years in this decade for amount of homes sold but it just does not compare to the peak of 2006 and 2007. Couple that with the fact that prices are still rising in Greenville and things don't look so bad. It is a buyer's market and there are a good amount of homes available, however, the market is stable and growing when keeping things in perspective. As the media would have you think that we haven't seen hard times like this since The Great Depression, the cold hard facts tell me that I would rather be in real estate in 2008 then 2004 or 1999 or the 1980's or any time before that.