This headline article (May 21 2008) reports an uptick in home sales in April. This is not unexpected due to the massive federal efforts at stabilizing or underwriting the market in recent months, plus the usual seasonality or volatility of property transactions. We must be cautious, however, in that a single month does not necessarily make a reliable trend. We endeavor to track local real estate market conditions and any trends in some of our real estate classes at CSM, www.collegeofsanmateo.edu. Prudence indicates we should wait for several months' data before proclaiming a new trend. Still and all, we expect there will be a stabilization and, eventually, another Up cycle in the real estate marketplace, just as there always has been (in our lifetimes, anyway) and just as there always is in any commodity on sale. And the federal reserve has been keeping mortgage money very cheap, which only makes any purchase more attractive in economic terms. Residential homes are seldom the best "get rich quick" ploy, nor are they designed to be "quickly flipped." They are shelter for people, not hot stocks or pork belly futures. People who plan to reside in this area for the long term should seriously consider settling into a home of their own, however, and over almost any eight or ten year period local housing has demonstated an ability to at least keep up with the secular trend of inflation, and often bettering it. It at least avoids a stack of worthless rent receipts. Now that the market is "not going up like a rocket" (at least for awhile), is a really GREAT time to pause a bit and LEARN about real estate and how markets typically work. Many serious and costly mistakes can be avoided by people who have taken the opportunity to learn what it is they are dealing with. As a home is often a person's largest financial transaction, the importance of acquring some knowledge about real estate -- before "diving into the pool," is all the more critical. Please consider youreself invited to read some real estate books, journals, studies and reports - and (as ever) everybody is most welcome at CSM to take our Real Estate Principles classes in any semester, convenient evening and day schedules with plenty of parking and easy freeway access ...(Summer and Fall classes are now filling up at the website, www.collegeofsanmateo.edu -- if you think you may wish to learn something about real estate anytime in this year 2008 NOW is the time to get a seat in a class because when these are filled up the next classes will not be until 2009). If CSM is too far for you, do please check what your local public community college may have on offer. It also can help to start reading and collecting articles about real estate, mortgage loans, and local economics conditions. We just had an instance of a lady who paid an approx. $60,000 commission on a home sale that was most probably not due the agent, there are a number of situations where big (and more common) mistakes can be avoided when people learn something about what they are getting into, first. While no class or school can provide legal or investment advice, anybody going into the arena is still very (very!) well advised to study the games played in there first. (Real estate can also be a great career path for many people...) Thanks, and best for a happy happy summer!