I was watching TV and came across a TV commercial for “home staging careers” from Haverhill.   The free market has a tendency of signaling the top and bottom in subtle ways if you’re paying attention and nothing says “bottom” than advertising a career as home staging to sell homes.

During the real estate boom, TV ads, local colleges and everyone were talking about becoming real estate agents or loan officers and making a killing during the boom.   I had a family member actually start real estate courses in late 2007 and I advised that the boom was coming to an end and they would be wasting their time but people will do what they will do.    After completing the program and getting a license we were way into the subprime mess and the license was useless.

Over the past few months I’ve seen a whole bunch of new “careers” being advertised to cash in on the downturn in the economy: Staging, Home Clean Out Specialists, Fraud Investigator, Relocation Specialists, etc.  This is signaling that we are close to the bottom in RESIDENTIAL real estate BUT commercial real estate still has a way to go.   I’ll give it about another 8 months before we start up the hill again.