Are you watching the real estate numbers? Surprisingly, sales were up for Oakland County again in August.  That makes 3 months in a row. I just got the statistics from Realcomp, our multiple listing service, and they were pretty good.  Even the pending sales were up despite all the horrible news of the last 30 days.

Are you following the national economic indicators? They're right here if you want to see them. What I see happening is that as the rest of the country begins to feel the pain that we have been feeling here in Oakland County for the past couple of years that the feds will probably step in and lower rates.  While that won't really help our unemployment and automotive situation it will begin to decrease rates on new mortgages some existing mortgages and equity loans. Consumer confidence is the thing we seem to be lacking the most right now. If consumers see things begin to improve I think they'll feel better about purchasing a home.

Yesterday I was watching Open House on CNN.  This show focuses on everything real estate. I'm an admitted news junkie but I shot off a nasty email to the host of the Open House show. The host made a comment about things being 'so bad that you couldn't get a mortgage if you wanted one!'  Totally untrue.  People are getting mortgages every day.  I guess the only good news for some people is bad news!