How do I know which locations are going to have price increases and which won't. I live in Saginaw, Mi?

Question

My house has been appraised for $86k and I want to know if it's going to appreciate in the next 2 years. Are there any statistics?

Answer 1

None whatsoever.  It's basically a roll of the dice.  If jobs increase in Saginaw, perhaps values will rise more than normal.  If any of us had a crystal ball, we would be able to give you a good answer.

Answer 2

You didn't say when your property was appraised, when you bought it, how much you paid for it and how much comparable homes in your area are selling for.  All of these things are necessary for making a prediction.  However, I live in Michigan too, in northern Oakland county, and I follow these things very closely.  There are two schools of thought here.  The first one is that the real estate market will continue to sit at rock bottom, and because of the auto industry and our state's other troubles, property will not begin to appreciate for at least five more years, and when it does rise in value, it will not catch up to where it would have been had Michigan not gone into a recession.

The second school of thought is that Michigan's economy tends to tank sooner than the rest of the country, but it also rises sooner and rebounds relatively well.  This school of thought predicts that property values will begin to rise in two years and the market will revive reasonably well.  Again, it won't rebound completely, but it will do fairly well.

The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, but right now it's impossible to predict.  I travel to Saginaw once or twice a month, and I haven't seen any new industries or a revival of old ones, and unless that happens, Saginaw will real estate will be stagnant for a long time.

Long story short, the chances of your property (and everyone else's here) appreciating in the next two years are basically nil.