NEW ORLEANS — Real estate experts gathered yesterday in New Orleans for the National Association of REALTORS® annual convention were cautiously optimistic about the current and future state of the industry.

Today’s market shouldn’t be called the new normal because the old market was abnormal, said speaker Margaret Kelly, chief executive officer of RE/MAX. “The spike up and down in the housing market wasn’t normal so we shouldn’t be measuring ourselves against it,” she said to the 20,000 REALTORS® who attended the gathering.

Despite some challenges there are plenty of opportunities in the housing market, she said, adding that low mortgage interest rates, abundant inventory, and stable prices are attracting buyers to the market right now.

Kelly said she hopes the government will incentivize businesses to create more jobs, which is the only thing that will help the housing market fully recover. “Consumers want an instant fix but we need to be patient,” she said.

Panelist Ron Peltier, chairman and CEO of HomeServices of America, Inc., said the nation is in the seventh inning of the housing market correction and compared today’s real estate market to the market in 2000, which many people thought was a good year in real estate.

“The rise in sales and prices during the boom was unrealistic and unsustainable, and all of that nonsense has been pushed out of the market—today buyers need to have jobs and be creditworthy,” said Peltier. “The underlying principles of home ownership are now the same they were 100 years ago; we want a sense of home and community, we strive for long-term not short-term home ownership, and we have sense of pride for owning a home.

To achieve a full housing recovery, the market must work through the foreclosure issue, which is dragging down home sales and prices, consumer confidence and the health of housing market and economy, he said.

Source: NAR