The housing market will continue its downward spiral, forecasts say, and that means opportunities for buyers. But waiting for the market bottom may not be the smartest strategy. Here are 5 reasons to buy now -- and 5 reasons you may want to wait. But for many buyers, there's no real need to wait for the market as a whole to officially bottom out, says Delores Conway, director of the Casden Forecast at the University of Southern California's Lusk Center for Real Estate. "Real estate is local," Conway says, and therefore what constitutes the bottom for the country is meaningless for those looking to buy and sell homes in their own neighborhoods.
