The Awareness Chasm

In this entry, I’d like to address the current portrayal of the housing market in daily media. The abundance of inconsistent information in the headlines is cause for great confusion among prospective homebuyers and homeowners alike. These reports are at times not especially enlightening and often lack depth and completeness. This is not to say that there is not more mindful media available on the current status of the housing market. Relevant, insightful articles do exist, but they’re often featured in business-focused journals, news sections, and blogs, which may require greater effort and curiosity by reader to seek out. Therefore, the all too often occurrence of the catchy, attention-grabbing negative headlines cloud the consumers’ perception and create a prevailing negative view of the housing market. I urge you to take the following into consideration: despite the doom and gloom portrayed by the media, much of the refined analysis about housing is vastly positive. An article recently published in The Wall Street Journal (linked below) is very optimistic in detailing how the housing market is poised to make significant gains. Overall housing affordability has dropped beneath pre-housing bubble levels in more than two-thirds of the country, raising affordability to an all-time high. Additionally, interest rates are low, demographics are encouraging, and household formations are on the uptick. This isn’t to say that conditions in the housing market are perfect, because they have much room to improve, but things are most certainly looking up. 

Wall Street Journal - Why It's Time To Buy
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576361522020024248.html