If you ask just about anybody, they’ll tell you the housing market will rebound sooner or later. At some point, it has to. It takes a real “The sky is falling” type of lunatic to assume that things will continue to get worse indefinitely. Regardless of who is in office, or what policies are put into place, real estate will bounce back. It always has, and it always will. But will real estate and the home loans market rebound soon? That’s a good question.

Some of the major banks seem to think so. J.P. Morgan Chase, for one, is adding almost 2,000 new loan originators, geared specifically for the home loans market. Do they know something we don’t know? Many housing experts are predicting that the market will continue to struggle for a while, but heavy hitters like Chase don’t just add staff willy-nilly. You can bet they’re thinking things are going to get better, and probably sooner rather than later.

So what are they seeing that we aren’t? Our guess is that a company that has been in business as long as Chase has knows that these kinds of things go in cycles. Sure, things have been rough for a while. Very rough. But they have been rough before. While there’s no way to prognosticate flawlessly where the housing market will begin its upswing, we’re guessing Chase thinks it’s pretty soon.

At the very least, they want to be prepared when the low cost of housing and increasingly attractive interest rates begin to drive the housing market forward and upward again. Which it will do eventually. Given time, in a capitalist system, it always does.

So what does that mean to Joe Consumer? Well, it depends on your situation, but if your credit is good enough to land a decent interest rate, it might mean that it’s time to go shopping for a house. You’re not likely to find the prices this low again in your lifetime, and due to government pressure (to say nothing of profit), the banks are eager to lend money and get the market rolling again.

That’s not to say that you should just go out and enter into a 30 year commitment lightly. But, if you want a house anyway, it might be the ideal time.

Photo via Emery_Way