There was interesting real estate market news on MSN this morning, saying that the real estate market may once again be the trigger to help this country avoid a recession in 2008. The Federal Reserve Board dropped interest rates in late 2007 as a way to avoid a recession, and add liquidity into the financial markets, but with the recent real estate market news about its continued sluggishness, no one is predicting when it will come out of its doldrums.
November and December are very slow months for new and existing home sales because of the holidays, so when the real estate market news comes out about the pace of sales during these two months, it may indicate if the lower interest rates have had any effect on the sales volume during these two typically slow months.
The MSN report also indicated that with oil surpassing $100 a barrel, gas could rise to $4 a gallon by the end of February. That seems unlikely, since this is an election year, and the $100 a barrel price was a fluke, according to NPR reports, and based on very light trading over the New Years Holiday.
