The Housing Market Grieves
Healthcare practitioners, counselors, psychologists, and clergy often use an emotional framework to explain the emotions that people go through after experiencing a traumatic event. While there are a couple of derivatives of this model, one of the most common is listed below….
- Shock – Is this real?
- Denial – This isn’t happening to me!
- Anger – Why is this happening to me?
- Bargaining – I promise I’ll be a better person if…
- Depression – I don’t care anymore.
- Acceptance – I’m ready for whatever comes.
How does this apply to real estate, you ask? Well, frankly for many homeowners, the recent severe downturn in the housing market is traumatic. For some, the pain may be immediate and life changing, such as a forced home sale or foreclosure. For others, the decline in real estate values may mean a delayed retirement. Yet for others, the current situation may be the lost dream of moving closer to family or obtaining a better job because they can’t sell their current home. There is no question that for many, the real estate market is a traumatic event and, with any trauma there will be some amount of grief.
If the U.S. housing market is the subject, where would you put us in the stages of grief?
- Shock. It seems that sometime in the first quarter of 2008 we watched in collective horror as events began to unfold. Major institutions were failing on Wall Street, northwest stewards such as Washington Mutual Bank lost 80% of their stock value, and potential home buyers were turned away by lenders.
- Denial. Fast on the heels of this bad news, cable news pundits started predicting a second half recovery for the market.
- Anger. By April, the US Senate is holding public hearings with major mortgage lenders.
- Bargaining. As summer is upon us, legislation is being proposed in the US Senate to help bail out many homeowners stuck in high risk loans.
- Depression. Consumer confidence was just rated at a 16 year low.
- Acceptance…
