Do you want the good news or the bad news first? Well, you’re going to have to skip down a bit if you are a good news kind of person.
The Bad News
Single-family home sales fell more than 25% this year in the United States. This correlates strongly with a huge loss in house and property values nationwide. While analysts thought that the bleeding would clot in September and October, from the Potomac to the Mississippi to well past the Rio Grande, rivers continued to run red with housing losses through November 2010.
If you are one of the tens of millions of Americans struggling to keep or sell your home, this may seem like catastrophic news. In fact, for anyone who hasn’t completely paid of their mortgage, it is hard to see this as good news.
It means that, if you don’t want to lose money on the deal, you are stuck with your current home well into the conceivable future. If you were planning on using your home equity for financial purposes or even for retirement money, your options have become more limited. Your bills haven’t really gotten any smaller, but your incentive has dropped.
As unemployment approaches 10% nation-wide, there is reason to be scared for the future. Analysts have said that property values and the housing market will not recover to be what it was in our lifetimes.
But uncertainty is exactly what insurance was made for!
The Good News
If the value of property falls, taxes are not likely to rise. While you are still making mortgage payments for a home that is no longer worth that much, at least you aren’t going to have to pay ever escalating taxes. In fact, property taxes often decrease with lower home values.
This removes some of the burden from financially distressed Americans.
If you make the tough decision to sell your home at a loss and get a cheaper residence, you will see that it is truly a buyer’s market. You will be able to find houses for a lot less than years past, and interest rates are the lowest that we have seen them in the United States. This means that restructuring your financial life now puts you in a better position into the future.
When you get a new deal on insurance at your less expensive new digs, you will find that home insurance policies are a bit less expensive.
The federal government has put in a number of safety net measures to help out Americans hit hard by the global economic downturn. It is better to go through the transformation now than wait until you have no options left.
Your Financial Outlook: Up or Down?
Even if the cost of home insurance goes down, for many who use the equity of their home to live or plan on retiring on the value of their home, falling home values is a very real threat to financial well-being. Make up for the loss by getting the best deals you can on good coverage – get free home insurance quotes now!
When it feels like times are shaky and your home life isn’t stable, good insurance is more important than ever.
