Real Estate predictions

CNN's Money/Business section has been running articles on the "real estate bubble" for quite some time now. Essentially they've been playing up the idea that the housing markets are about to burst and we'll see a long-term slowdown and even deflation in home prices. Here's the problem - their predictions really only apply to the hot, big markets - in California and Florida primarily. It'd be nice if they sprinkled in some optimism about the rest of the country amongst their predictions of housing Armageddon for Las Vegas and L.A. For those of you, who like me reside in Western New York there's a happy report from them in their latest gloomy chart. They expect markets like Rochester, Syracuse, and Buffalo to continue the mild appreciation in home prices around the neighborhood of 6% (which is actually competitive with the current YTD returns of the S&P 500). Of course, if you ever compared our housing market to the true bubble areas like say - Stamford, CT - you already knew that. Our housing market has been relatively undervalued even in the majority of the most sought after areas - You can still find investment properties where the mortgage payments and rental income plus expenses compare nicely. The difference is that we're finally approaching the true house values here - whereas in the past the market tended to be very much undervalued (due to the local economy and crime rate which are finally trending positively again).

[If you're interested in more real estate related news, opinions and predications, please check out: Local Real Estate Sales Continue to Impress, Rochester Real Estate, More Real Estate Predictions, and Real Estate Predictions for 1Q 2007]