Here's a news item and no big surprise. Consumers are the ones who will lead this country out of its real estate recession. It won't be the lenders, it won't be Wall St., but the everyday folks who make this country tick who will save the day. The sooner everybody "gets it", the better off we'll all be in the homeownership space.

It's easy to go back in time and be an armchair quarterback and say what went wrong, but what good will it do? The real question you have to ask yourself it this; "Do I believe that real estate is a sound long-term investment?". If the answer is yes, real estate is "on sale", much like the post-Christmas bargains we all search for in department stores.

If you need a roof over your head, and you like the place you're looking at, it may well be a good time to buy it. Interest rates are still fairly low by historical standards. Home prices are lower than they have been in a long time, and none of us are getting any younger.

It's true that the "get rich quick" house flipping opportunities are fewer and farther between because this market is tighter than it has been for a long time. There's little margin for error and if you buy wrong, over-spend your budget, or take too long to sell the property, you'll probably lose money. In addition to the these issues, you need to have some "holding power". In other words, the financial ability ride out a longer marketing period because of slowness in the market.

The everyday person has an opportunity to buy homes at a discount from where they have been and they only way markets turn around is if the consumer gets involved. We live in a great country and one of our freedoms is the ability to own a small piece of this country and more importantly, to own it for ourselves.

One last point and that is about fixed rate mortgages. One of the great values in a fixed rate is that your cost of living should go down over time. As you grow professionally and you earn more, housing costs will become a smaller percentage of your monthly budget if you are on a fixed rate program. That will give you more disposable income that you can save for a rainy day or purchase something you need. Try not to fall prey to loan programs that may blow up your payments to a point where they control you.