“Given the decline in housing prices and the decline in interest rates, housing is much more affordable than a year ago and we still don’t see people rushing in to purchase,” Shilling said. “The price declines are affecting more of the mainstream” than potential job losses.
–DePaul University real estate professor James Shilling, quoted in an article that will appear in tomorrow’s Tribune. (Yes, DePaul has a Real Estate Studies department.)
Although home builders are lowering prices, adding finish upgrades and introducing mortgage protection programs, Shilling says buyers are still worried that once they sign the dotted line, the value of the home will begin losing value. Trib writer Mary Ellen Podmolik likens Shilling’s assessment to buyers thinking of homes like cars, “which depreciate the minute they’re driven off the lot.”