Will The Stock Market Affect Your Home Purchase? (Part 3 of 3)

What does all of this mean for real estate?

That depends on what aspect of real estate you're talking about. Publicly traded real estate-based companies including "Realogy, Zillow, Redfin, News Corp, and Re/Max "posted modest losses between end of trading on Thursday and Monday's close," said Inman. Real estate investors also felt an immediate pinch. "The plunge also resonated through real estate investment trust stocks, resulting in a 2.9% drop in the FTSE NAREIT All Equity REIT Index Monday," said BISNOW. But, National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT) "economist Brad Case said the 2.86% drop in the All Equity REIT index, though sizable, will be short-lived."

The potential for dipping consumer confidence can have a far greater impact on the overall economy and, specifically, the real estate market.

"Consumer confidence is a major consideration when people purchase durable goods and real estate," said ZACKS. "Few people are likely to commit to a big mortgage payment if they feel that their economic future is uncertain. When the stock market retreats and the value of portfolios declines, investors are impacted psychologically. Even if the portfolios are in IRAs, which will not be touched for years, people's confidence is shaken. Loss of confidence can spread like a virus, affecting others who have not been financially hurt but have nevertheless become unnerved."

Which leads us back to the overall economy. U.S. jobs data released last week showed that "wage growth is picking up," said CNN Money. Even small upticks in mortgage rates haven't slowed down the real estate market, especially in light of consistent news about rising rents across the country that can make owning a home more affordable than paying someone else's mortgage in many cities.

The stability of real estate as an asset should shield the industry - and those who are looking to be a part of it, even as stocks rise and fall. "Back when the internet bubble burst in the year 2000, during that period, that's when the housing market began to steadily rise," National Association of Realtors Chief Economist Lawrence Yun told Inman. "That means that as people felt their financial assets to be very volatile, people were looking for more stable assets, which they perceived that real estate could provide."