Dan Green wrote a post today about the latest jobs report, and how it impacted home prices in his market of Ohio.  According to Dan’s post:

“… 95,000 jobs were lost in September. Economists expected a net loss of 5,000.  However, if public sector jobs are excluded from the final figures, jobs actually grew by 64,000.  This is a positive for the private-sector, but the numbers still trailed expectations.

Wall Street is voting with its dollars right now and mortgage bonds are gaining, improving mortgage pricing.”

Nationwide there’s a lot of uncertainty and confusion in the real estate market right now; it’s not just confined to the New River Valley.  But in reality, our current real estate market boils down to three things – (1) if people have jobs they buy things, and if they buy things then (2) businesses grow, so if businesses grow then (3) more jobs are created.

It just doesn’t matter whether the recession is over or not (and who really believes that, anyhow?) – if people don’t feel good about their job prospects, or whether they’ll even have a job in six months, they’re not purchasing anything of substance.  That’s why I said unemployment numbers in the New River Valley are going to be so, so important moving forward.  Today’s report improves rates, but it’s not going to have a major impact without significant job creation.