Housing cocktail talk drying up

Remember the housing boom of 2001 to 2006? Seemed like everyone wanted to chat about residential real estate.

As a reporter covering the real estate business, I couldn’t go anywhere without people wanting to talk about rising home values. Real estate chitchat had temporarily knocked weather-related small talk off its perch as king of the small-talk conversation.

Well, those days are over. I’m finding that no one wants to talk about housing anymore. And people especially don’t want to talk about their own homes and their own property values. The real estate talk I do hear at gatherings is usually ominous, stories of people who’ve lost their homes to foreclosure, or those who’ve been trying to sell their homes for months.

I sometimes wonder if we’ll ever see a housing boom like that one that began in 2001. I almost hope not. Sure, another boom would be good for the housing industry, obviously, and the economy. But wouldn’t it also lead to yet another housing bust, the likes of which we are experiencing now? Me, I’d prefer a slow but steady rise in housing prices. That’s always seemed the safest to me.