As We Proceed with Caution

Dear Friends,
What can I tell you?
Buy stocks? (Gary Shilling, president of the economic research firm A. Gary Shilling & Co. Photographer: Jonathan Fickies/Bloomberg
Nov. 11 (Bloomberg)) ... Gary Shilling, who predicted the U.S. housing collapse, says the stock market is overvalued and foresees a “significant” selloff within a year as the Federal Reserve fails to stimulate economic growth.

Buy Gold? Then read articles like this from Weekend Investor
Nov. 12, 2010, 5:20 p.m. EST :
"Why gold is a bad investment ...
Precious metal lures susceptible buyers into a Midas crush." Gold doesn't pay interest and as the article says, "it is (only) going up because people are buying it." Sounds oddly like real estate in Las Vegas in 2007.
We may already have a gold bubble.

What are new home builders saying? Why, they say stuff like this from an email today:
PICK TWO! Pick Two!
Purchase and close escrow on your new home by 1/31/2011 and receive TWO FREE GIFTS from (WXYZ) Homes. Pick two of the following gift packages (up to a total value of $5,000):
Home Furniture Package
Shopping Spree
Moving Expenses Paid
Deferred Mortgage Payment
Landscape Package

Does this sound a little like the discount lunch special? They seem to shout,
"We're not desperate. We're not desperate. We're not scared and there is no buggy man!"

Then, why on earth would they offer incentives like that?
Try this one from Nuwire Weekly today: On trimming the deficit from "...the bipartisan commission in February to provide options on overhauling the tax system and reducing the national deficit. According to a November report, one option excludes citizens from deducting interest payments on second residences, home equity loans or mortgages over $500,000. Other options would be to tax dividends and capital gains at the ordinary rates."

Dark times of biblical proportions. Hey, sinner man, where's your money going to run to? Run to the rock? To the ocean? Or just to interest on the deficit.

From the lack of commitment in real estate (there is still interest, like fishing with hook and line and watching the cork bob up and down...)it would indicate that most people are opting to stay puy, stay liquid, and see what really happens when Congress changes hands...Change like we've seen before. As a Realtor, I am in favor of anything that drags this out forever ... not. The problem may be that those who usually take the long term view, see the low interest, the low prices, and streaks of blood in the streets spelling out the words "buy now", still can't make out the cold clear dawn of the usual upswing at the end of a cycle. Perhaps they worry, "this may not be cyclical this time."
And 2012 looms.
2013 never looked so good.