I feel guilty for saying this but my family has not been hit by the recession yet. I do see the affects all around me though. Two houses directly across the street from were foreclosed on. A third one was sold at auction because the woman really wanted to sell and saw no other way to get rid of it. Needless to say, all three of these homes sold for about 60%-70% less than they would have sold for in early 2007. That affects all of us homeowners on the street. So that would be the biggest way that the current mini-depression has affected us. The value of our home has gone WAY down and if we needed to sell we would have to almost give it away in the current market. But we're just staying right where we are right now. Home prices will rebound eventually when things get straightened out.
There are many empty rental homes in our area. Our church owns a rental home that has been sitting empty for months. Rents have gone way down. Our church relied on rental income from that property to help pay for the church's monthly expenses. It's really taken a bite. They can barely afford to even run the air conditioner on Sunday mornings. It's like an oven. This is HOTLANTA!
We have to get to the bottom of the housing depression. We have to sell all these new homes that are sitting around empty. We have to get to the end of all these foreclosures and get those houses sold. Then maybe housing prices will be begin to rebound. But we're not going to get to the end of the foreclosures until we stop the job losses and the unemployment rate starts to improve.
My next door neighbor has been out of work for 15 months. Numerous people at church are out of work or have had hours cut.
We're in a vicious cycle. I don't think we've really started to recover yet. I don't even know if we've reached the bottom yet.