When sadness is a good thing in the Reno-Sparks real estate market

I was reading an article entitled "When Sadness is a good thing" written by John Cloud for Time Magazine.

It discussed how our society just drugs out the feeling of sadness and raises the question "what if sadness is good for us?"

It made me ask the same thing for the real estate market "what if this crash is good for us?"

A lot of people would hate me for saying (even my old self) that YES it is good for us in a way, let me explain.

In the Reno/Sparks market during the mid 2005 which was the ceiling: see Reno Sparks Year 2005 & Reno-Sparks Existing Home Sales

The median price for homes was *$317,000 ( Dec 2005) which in my opinion was totally out of reach for us locals here which predominantly consist of warehouse, casino workers, Blue collar jobs whose income is not sufficient for the prices of home: see Reno-Sparks median income   which we all see is somewhat out of balance.

Two to Three families have to live together just to afford the monthly payment, considering the average family will most likely have car payments, credit card bills etc. (I understand that some families prefer to live together. I am talking about the ones who do not have a choice but to live together in order to afford the mortgage).

So going back to my answer that YES this crash is good for us because of that one point right there (homes being more affordable for the majority)

Now the locals have power to purchase, if not now, in the future. They have a better chance on reclaiming the American Dream- a home of their own. I understand that the mortgage guidelines have changed and got stricter which is again a good thing because nobody will get approved with something they cannot afford in the first place, and at the same time it will rid  the people of the predatory lenders hovering out there in the market.

But would everybody agree? Of course not! Do I enjoy this market? Of course not! I lost a lot of money because of the crash and so did some of my clients who bought in 2005.

So do I still think that this crash is good? Yes. Because as an Investor I learned a lot because of this market and where it's headed: Read Ian's article entitled Hard Lessons Learned. As an Agent I am now learning a lot about marketing, planning and most importantly, patience.

Do I want it to last longer? NO! Our colleague  Guy Johnson has on their blog that this would finally hit bottom by second quarter of 2009 according to CNN Money.  Praise God!  Ian and I were discussing about this prediction.  We both think it is fairly accurate basing it from the history of Real Estate market trends.

I know that this market has caused and will continue to cause a lot of pain and misery and I sincerely do not want that for anyone ( I know exactly how it feels, butterflies in your stomach but in a negative way). That is not my point for bringing this up.  I am merely suggesting the positive side of the situation, looking at the glass "HALF FULL".