Rod's Blog

It's been remarkably busy in the appraisal business for late   December. My workday is compressed due to short daylight hours and the holidays are shortening the next two work weeks to about 6 or 7 days instead of 10 so things are backing up a bit. Most of my work is generated by refi and home equity lending. Appraisals on new purchases are a distant 3rd.

What about prices? Based on general observations and not a statistical analysis, it appears that most segments of the market are holding pretty steady and some even show a modest uptick in values. But the "high end" seems to be struggling to hold up to values from 2. 3 and even 4 years ago. This seems to be a function of reduced demand and I've noticed it more in the past 3 or 4 months than before.

Overall, that's not so bad a postition when compared to many markets which remain completely under water with little sign of recovery in the foreseeable future. 

What does the near future hold? Who knows... we are in uncharted territory with historic low interest rates, unprecidented goverment give-aways to homebuyers and high unemployement.

Still, the past year has been a series of surprises, mostly pleasant, with regard to my market area.

But my crystal ball remains cloudy as ever...