Interesting Thoughts on the Real Estate Market

In talking to a colleague the other day he made some observations about the real estate market cycles that I thought were astute and also heartening as well.  

First off, looking back historically down markets usually last 12-18 months and the worst market downturns in the past 35 years was 24 months.  That is heartening in that we have been on a downturn now for 18 moths...so even if we are probably in store for a 24 month downturn we only have six months more of bad market to get through.  

The second observation that he made...that of course we've all heard before, but I thought it was good to repeat was: in looking at real estate versus the stock market...the tangible nature of real estate means that no matter how bad the market gets it is never going to zero.  However, in the stock market, even for the bluest of blue chip companies DO have the potential (no matter how remote) to go to zero, thus making real estate a safer bet in all markets.  

Just two quick observations.  Nothing earth-shattering or relatively new...but worth remembering.