More people with more insider knowledge than me have been posting advice and opinions that now is the time to invest in real estate, it may never be this price again for land or homes. I have been seeing a lot of "expert" blogs agreeing that the bottom is here and the prices will be going up. By this time next year, if you could have made the purchase this year, you will probably look back and wish you had gone ahead and bought before the prices started going back up. They will you know, and when they do, I believe they will recover much faster than anyone expects. I wrote a blog almost a month ago saying this at http://www.ozarksagent.com/blogs/stephen_mattison/archive/2008/08/03/time-to-buy-in-my-opinion.aspx. Stating, in my opinion, in the Ozarks we were already seeing a levelling off in the prices which indicated a bottom had been reached. Since then I have seen many of the experts writing the same thing regarding the national market. Any good agent will know in their local market whether that has occurred and that is who should be asked. Your local Real Estate Agent is the expert on the local market and what the media is saying may or may not be relevant to that market. So I suggest you get the scoop first hand from a reputable local REALTOR®.