Never buy in a location with declining or static population growth.✅ Economic stability.

If that home sells for less two years later, that's not a natural decline or crash.Choice homes in choice Phoenix neighborhoods that are priced appropriately will have multiple offers opening weekend.if you're sitting on a doozy off a busy street with peeling paint, busted roof, struggling HVAC, and cast plumbing - yeah, you're not setting any sales records compared to when rates were 3%.You could say I remain bullish on Phoenix.

Here in San Diego, last week we started to see the first decline  in a while week over week.  

Some we track that I didn’t see are. . .Related to leasing: Showings per property# of Applications (total and by property)# of Approvals (total and by property)# of Declines (total and by property)# of Leases signedRelated to new Owners: Inbound LeadsOutbound LeadsConsultationsSigned Management Agreements# New UnitsRelated to occupied properties: MRE’s – These are “Moving Related Errors” – this is where we drop the ball on a move in or move out.# of touches a property manager has each week based on categories – touch = a drive by or visit to a property.Because we are in slightly different businesses, you probably track these in different ways.

Commercial residential has experienced declines that non commercial residential has not experienced, various syndicators are still providing near 20% annual return, s&p500 has lifetime return near 10%, money market and CDs have higher return than in years.  

But even for the folks that were in REITs before the rate hikes and suffered big declines in value, their dividend payouts have been largely unaffected. 

Not sure where you're looking to buy, but here in Ohio we tend to have smaller loan amounts, which is another thing to consider - even if you go with the 5 year and the prepayment penalty does kick in if you sell/refinance, it probably won't be as bad as if you were buying somewhere with higher property values like CA....plus the penalty declines the longer you've held the property.

If its because the rents are uncollectable or declining then I'm not interested.

If santa monica didn't decline then either, it would be the very first place I'd buy if the market goes down again to a level which is supported by fundamentals (population and income levels).  

pid=1999Houston Real Estate Highlights in October, 2023:-Single-family home sales fell 3.4 percent year-over-year, the smallest one-month sales drop of 2023 and the 19th consecutive month of declines;-Compared to October 2019, before the pandemic, sales were down 11.3 percent, and compared to October 2018, five years back, they were down 4.6 percent;-Days on Market (DOM) for single-family homes rose from 43 to 47 days;-Total property sales fell 4.3 percent with 7,825 units sold;-Total dollar volume dropped 2.6 percent to $2.98 billion;-The single-family median price fell a fractional 0.9 percent to $327,000;-The single-family average price rose a fractional 0.4 percent to $403,556; -Single-family home months of inventory registered a 3.6-months supply, up from 2.8 months a year earlier – the highest level since November 2019 when it also was 3.6 months;-Townhome/condominium sales experienced their 17th straight monthly decline, falling 16.4 percent, with the median price up 6.6 percent to $239,900 and the average price up 1.2 percent to $272,597;-Compared to pre-pandemic 2019, townhome and condominium sales were down 10.5 percent.