Imagine the motorcycle dare devil jumping a string of automobiles.  Picture the ramp leading up to the automobiles as representing the prices Customers are willing to pay for property and the motorcyclist represents the prices owners are asking for their property.  The motorcyclist races faster and faster toward the ramp, charging up the ramp until suddenly the dare devil parts company with the ramp.  For a while, the dare devil continues its upward trend.  Then the dare devil reaches the apex of his jump and he starts to fall back down to earth meeting with the ramp at the other end of the string of automobiles.  Charging down the ramp, he meets the ground and thus levels off once again.

That describes our real estate market over the past couple of years.  I hope that we are at the point where the motorcyclist and the ramp are about to meet once again.  In other words, the prices Sellers are asking and the prices Buyers are willing to pay are about to meet once again.  Seemingly, overnight, we are seeing "Price Reduced" signs and other incentives almost everywhere we look.  Prices will continue to drop for a short while until they level off once again.

The run up in prices was unlike anything I have seen in my 30+ years in the real estate business here in the Big Bend area of Florida.  As we have seen in the gold market and as happens in the stock exchange, we are now seeing a "correction" in the market place.  With prices dropping, we are starting to see Buyers starting to poke their heads out once again.

New construction sales fell by more than 17% in 2006 and prices across Florida fell by 3% in November compared with one year ago.  We can only hope that it will be a soft, gentle landing rather than a crash landing.

What are your thoughts?  A nice smooth landing...or Evel Knievel jumping the Caesar's Palace fountains on New Year's Eve 1968?