Much of the housing recovery you’ve been hearing about is still just hype, says Jonathan Miller of Manhattan-based real estate appraisal company Miller-Samuel.
“We keep throwing the ‘recovery’ word around, but the big numbers are coming from sources being created from the tight market,” he told Business Insider. “Tight credit is causing rents to rise; falling mortgage rates are pushing people to buy.
“There’s this sense that no one really has a sense of where we are in the housing market. Recovery is this very generic, undefined term. Maybe that’s a good thing, not one extreme or the other.”
Ultimately, it depends where you are.
“When you say ‘recovery’ you’re implying that things are going to go up,” Samuel continued. “In certain markets you might see that, but in some you won’t.”
So what does the seasoned appraiser think consumers will see in the market over the next five years?
“A sideways orientation,” he said. “For now, it may make lenders more comfortable and help turn prices around, but I guess I take offense to it because I think when people hear it, deep down they don’t trust the message either. All it does is create more confusion.”
