In a market upswing, crying over missed past buying opportunities can lead to even more tears

In the fictitious value trend graph above, the best opportunities were yesterday (or some time before now). 

As a housing market starts to improve, some buyers have a tendency to get stuck on the fact that they just missed out on the lowest prices seen during a market downturn.  It is important for those tearful buyers to remember, however, that there will likely be more tears and larger tears tomorrow (or some amount of time into the future) when prices have recovered even further.

For example....

• Houses in neighborhood X were selling for $300K in the market boom.
• They came down and down and sold for as little as $250K a few months ago.
• Now they're all selling for $260K and I'm sad because I missed out on a $250K buy.
• If I wait longer, I'll get to cry even more to be buying at $270K!

A few notes and disclaimers....

• Has our local housing market recovered?  Not necessarily, and not in all price ranges and property types --- but there are a lot of encouraging signs.
• You might recall the opposite dynamic occurring with sellers as they watched their home decline in value over time.
• Did I really miss the boat?  Are prices only going up from here?  Maybe, maybe not -- we'll only know 6-12 months from now looking back, but we are definitely starting to see stabilization in many price ranges, and buyers are finding less room to negotiate.