Lowell Deeds

I’ll take a break from the elation of last night’s blowout victory by the Red Sox and return to the unfortunate reality of the real estate market. Both the Globe and the Sun report today that real estate sales have slid more than expected (something we’ve seen all along), but the New York Times has a story with more ominous news: The estimated value of all real estate in the United States is $21 trillion. The slide in housing prices is estimated by many economists to be up to 20%. Using that $21 trillion figure, that means that $4 trillion dollars in wealth has simply evaporated - it no longer exists. And it wasn’t like that $4 trillion was sitting in an unclaimed pile out in the wilderness: it was the property of people and institutions and now it has disappeared. It will take years for the books to be balanced and the losses tallied. The impact of this lost wealth will be a drag on our economy for years to come.