Harvard University puts together a great publication each year called “The State Of The Nation’s Housing 2009”. I created this chart from the 2009 publication showing the highs, lows and recovery period between them during past cycles. As you can see it takes 9 to 10 years for a property to be worth the same as it was from the previous peak. The current cycle had a much longer appreciation cycle then it had in past cycles so it is only common sense that it will take longer to recover. If any homeowners are thinking that they will just wait until the market prices increase they may have to wait quite a bitter longer. The interesting thing is, even if they do wait till the prices appreciate technically the property is not worth more, the value increased because the dollar is worth less! If you need to sell, sell now and take advantage of the low interest rates.