Special Bulletin

In light of the economic tremors that are going on in the financial sector today, I felt compelled to provide a comment: The failure of certain firms who took part (on the institutional side) in the personal real estate frenzy was not unexpected. The problems produced by the greed of that event were bound to "come home to roost". It is unfortunate that this part of the inevitable cycle has to come at this point, though. Just last week, we saw very favorable signs of resolution to the overall financial marketplace's woes: mortgage rates plunged, consumer confidence surged (partly in response to the strengthening dollar), commodity prices declined, and other systemic gauges improved. These signs all point to an overall improvement in the outlook for the home price issue (and the overall economy) at the root of the market's problems of late.

As with the demise of Bear Stearns earlier this year, our marketplace will absorb this action regarding Lehman. The improving underlying forces of the market mentioned above will continue to move forward, and we'll see an end to this current turmoil soon. Using history as our guide, we know that "this too shall pass".

Going forward, I expect for confidence levels to continue to increase, in spite of today's news, and for the market issues to eventually work themselves out - most likely by the Spring. All of these factors' improvement are building the basis for home prices to stabilize, and the overall marketplace is getting back on track.

In short - as many of you have heard me say before: When the markets are down is not the time to make brash moves. We can be our own worst enemy if we think we can resolve this problem on our own. Don't just do something, stay put.

And as always, if you want to talk it over, please give me a call.