As reported today in the Daily News Record, the number of building permits has dropped by roughly 16% in Rockingham County. As Jenny Jones points out, this reflects what has been going on for the past year nationally --- both with building permits and the number of homes sold.

David Milstead, of Milstead Construction, also makes a great point that there are still plenty of buyers for mid-priced homes, but upper-end home buyers seem to have disappeared lately. One additional reason for this, is that many of our market's high end buyers were relocating or retiring from larger markets, selling high-priced homes in those markets, and buying high-priced homes in our market. With several of those markets slowing down, the rate of high end buyers entering our market from outside has certainly slowed in the last 12-18 months.

With every economic turn (for better or for worse), there exists an opportunity. The current opportunity is for hiring a contractor to do a home improvement project. Over the past few years, this was a tough task --- with the huge demand for new construction housing, it was difficult to find someone to build an addition, or a deck, or to remodel a kitchen, etc. All that has changed --- look in the classifieds section of the Daily News Record and you'll see many contractors and builders seeking customers both to build homes or do home improvement projects. There are lots of options, and I imagine you would be able to obtain multiple, competitive bids.