The current real estate market has been hard on me homeowners in the Portland Oregon and Vancouver Washington area. It has not been out of the norm for your typical person who owns a home to have lost 30 to 40% in their home equity.

As as unfortunate as that is now is the time to buy a home in the area. Real estate is going for pennies on the dollar relative to what it was going for her two years ago. Many homes that were once out of the price range of your average individual now are affordable.

For instance in many parts of Vancouver Washington your typical three bedroom two bath home would cost more than $300,000. This would've been in an average neighborhood. Now, in 2010, you can buy a pretty nice home for $250,000. There is just so much more value for your money versus what you could get several years ago.

Let's backup a moment as a felony to disclose something. Credit is a lot harder to get than it was two years ago. Easy credit was the main factor that fueled the local home buying craze as soon as that well dried up so did massive home sales. Although there are a lot of buying opportunities in the Vancouver Washington area you have to be able to get the credit to buy these properties. Reviewer person who has excellent credit you should have no problems. If you are person with average to good credit you may have to put more money down. This is where having money in the bank can really help a person have a step up. Even before you talk to her real estate agent you should see what type of loan you would qualify for based on your credit history and income level.

Economic and real estate busts are nothing. They have happened many times and believe me, if history tells us anything, they will happen again. You would think as humans we would understand and be prepared for the cycles but as it turns out we never are. What the smart people do is take advantage of the cycles and when the market is down they buy and when it eventually goes back up they sell. If the market is going well, and you are buying, you will probably lose.

Vancouver Washington is Portland's biggest suburb. Though the local economy is not the best it's ever been make no mistake that it is still viable and there's plenty of people who want to live here. That is not going to change anytime soon. The real estate market has corrected itself and as much as it hurts it was do. Those who have foresight will reap the rewards later. ezinearticles