The word game-changer is used so loosely by marketers that when a true transformatory event occurs, one wonders what to call it!

Most prospective home-buyers or even analysts following the real estate sector find it difficult to be even rationally optimistic forget irrationally exuberant! Who wouldn’t after experiencing prediction after prediction (of price appreciation) go wrong for 7 years in a row!

Yet, the key macroeconomic factors that determine housing demand are now more perfectly aligned to stoke recovery then they were in the last many decades:

Mortgage rates at 7%
Transacted prices down 15-20% over just 1-2 year old levels.
Stamp duty now 2% (till December 31) down from 6% in March

So while renters have bragged about their smarter decision to their house-owner friends for many years, the tables have now turned, and decisively so. It’s time to take a Bayesian approach – update our models with the new macroeconomic reality, change our view, and most importantly, act upon it lest we loose out on one of the best times to buy a house in the history of this country.