Sunday reading from the NY Times

Here's an article from today's New York Times' business section entitled Great Time to Buy (Famous Last Words).  It's not pro-home buying (and not strongly against it either), but it is worth reading.  And by the way, I never tell people it's a great time to buy.  It's only a great time to buy if it's a great time to buy for the particular buyer. 

Of course, all r.e. markets are local, so I disagree with many of the author's points.  Just about all of us have been renters at some point and most of us have nightmare landlord stories.  And the loss of "opportunity costs" of your mortgage downpayment?  What opportunity?  To go gamble your money away in the stock market?  And the evil of property taxes?  Again, that's a very local issue.  But how else to fund local infrastructure? And wouldn't your landlord be passing along his/her property taxes to you in the form of rent anyway?

One important correction to the text.  I originally read this as a hard copy.  When I went on line to get the url, there was this disclaimer at the bottom: An earlier version of this article misstated the additional amount by which Barry Ritholtz believes homes prices need to drop in the short term in order to return to their historical norms. It is 15 percent, not 50.