I’ve had a lot of people ask me lately, “Tom, what do you see is coming next? What’s the next step in this mess?”
A couple of thoughts at this point:
- Anyone short of Nouriel Roubini, Paul Krugman, Meredith Whitney and maybe a few others who tell you that they KNOW how this is all going to end is lying. (Did you notice how I didn’t include Treasury Secretary Geithner or anyone in Washington in that list?)
- But there are some people who have the ability to peer a little farther out into the fog than most do.
- Anyone who tells you this isn’t a confusing and potentially scary time is lying to you as well. Never in our life times have we seen the kind of financial devastation and economic pain that is currently happening.
The things that are going on are causing lots of people to question a lot of things that they weren’t questioning before. Things like:
- Will I be able to retire?
- Can I ever trust a mortgage lender again?
- Will real estate still be a good investment?
- What’s happening in the stock market?
- Is my financial advisor telling me the whole story?
- What are mortgage rates going to do?
- How does the actions of the Federal Reserve impact the financial markets?
- What are the long and the short term ramifications of the deficits that the government is currently running?
- How does the value of the dollar impact real estate and mortgages?
Those are just a smattering of the types of questions that I’ve been hearing from people lately. Okay, some of them aren’t quite in the format that I spelled them out but they have basically been asking that. Frankly, I think the consumer’s desire to ask more questions is a good thing and a healthy thing in the long run.
So where am I going with this? I’m getting to it…….
I’ve been fortunate to “hook up” with two of the experts in other areas of the financial spectrum (one of whom is our own Jeff Brown) and we’re setting up a new source for financial and real estate market insight and understanding. As Read more