Sunday, March 22, 2009

The Sweet Spot

Did you sell your home before the housing crash, or are you planning to buy an investment property, and now you're just waiting for the bottom of the market to re-buy? Well, so am I... And I experienced something recently that I think is worthy of consideration...

Recently, Circuit City went out of business; discounting all of their inventory as they got closer to their store closing deadline. While this was happening I visited the store frequently, waiting for the deals to be "just right". What was I interested in? Video games!!! So, toward the end, I happened to stop into the store, and all video games were 50% off!!! Despite this steep discount, there were still many of the titles I was looking for on the shelf; however, there was a well known pattern that every week they increase the discount by 10%. The prices were going to fall to 60% off, and I absolutely considered that the sweet spot. Well, the evening Circuit City reduced the video games to 60% off, I visited a few stores. All of the good games were gone. All of a sudden, that 50% off that I could've gotten didn't seem so bad, and I longed to be able to pick up one of those titles at 50% off... But it was too late.

So, at this point, I'm sure you've guessed where this is going... I believe in similar fashion, at the bottom, the type of property you're looking for may be in short supply as everyone else who was waiting for the bottom will be bidding, perhaps over-bidding, for those same properties. Thus, if you find a property now that has everything you're looking for, you may want to consider making a bid for it for an amount you can live with; because the alternative may be taking what you can get once the good stuff is gone.