One American dream that is still showing signs of life
Jun 20, 2012, 9:11 AM | Updated: 9:42 am
It may be irrational; |
It may be irrational; it may not be supported by many
of the experts and the statistics they like to fling
around, but the American Dream of owning the most colossal
house you can possibly afford hasn’t been snuffed out yet!
“McMansions look like they’re making a comeback.”
There it was on CNBC.
A survey from real estate website Trulia.com
showing
that home buyers in certain cities are on the march, and
not just for any home.
“People’s dreams are a lot bigger than what the reality
is,” said Trulia’s Chief Economist Jed Kolko.
Kolko told CBS’s Dan Raviv he’s noticed a huge jump in
searches for homes of more than 4000 square feet.
“We found that people are almost twice as likely to
want homes of that size than they were a year ago,” said
Kolko.
They seem to be betting that the investment will pay
off when prices bounce back. But he predicts it’s gong to
be a very slow bounce.
“Consumers think that prices in their local market will
get back to where they were at the height of the bubble,”
said Kolko. “In the hardest hit markets I don’t expect
we’ll get back to peak bubble prices even in the next ten
years.”
Of course, he’s just one economist making his best
guess, and as we know the number of best guesses is
limited only by the number of times you ask then the
question – and in fact, I also caught Jed’s appearance on
CNBC, and maybe it was the perennial cheerfulness of those
CNBC anchors, but he seemed a lot more optimistic.
“Prices could fall back if a global recession kills
housing demand, but we are beyond the worst when it comes
to the housing market in the US,” said Kolko.
And what could be more American than a little
exuberance.
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