What’s real estate doing in your area?

[Carrie12345]

I’m just trying to get a picture to see how good interest rates are impacting the dead of winter to eventually compare what a raise in rates will do later.

Here, inventory doesn’t seem to be much lower than it’s been through most of the pandemic.  Maybe a little less, but not by much for the season. (Which is still to say low. Just not the-past-couple-of-years-low.)

EVERY house I save, either for comp purposes or just for fun/curiosity gets snatched quickly, but there’s no clear consistency with pricing.  They’re going below, at, and above list price with little obvious rhyme or reason.

I was bummed that a dream property came on the market last week. But then it went pending so fast, it reminded me of the nightmare that was attempting to score a dream property a year ago, and the very reason we took ourselves out of that position.

[MEmama]

Houses here rarely make it to market, and sell for historic highs. I recently read that there are SIX houses for sale in the city of Portland, our largest city. I don’t know how anyone gets a foot in the door in this market, it’s insane. 

[Roadrunner]

It remains crazy here - low inventory, mind blowing prices. Cash buyers dominate, making it very difficult to buy anything for normal families. 

[Navymom]

Still crazy here too. DS sold his home last weekend for $21,000 over asking with a cash offer and possession for 30 days after closing.

He received 5 offers the first day, all over asking price and some with no inspection.

He has already purchased a new home, but it wasn't easy. Homes they were interested in were often sold by the end of the day, before they could even look at them. 

 

 

 

[Eos]

30 minutes ago, MEmama said:

Houses here rarely make it to market, and sell for historic highs. I recently read that there are SIX houses for sale in the city of Portland, our largest city. I don’t know how anyone gets a foot in the door in this market, it’s insane. 

They don't get a foot in the door.  And it's never going back.  Vacation rentals are the worst, but all rentals bring income to investors.  Feudalism was brutal but the income for the owners of land was spectacular and in many cases those same income streams flow to the descendants even now, hundreds of years later.  Late-stage capitalism is coming full circle to this.  Regulation will be the only way out, unless we really want to wish for a Black Death-style intervention.

https://survivingtomorrow.org/this-real-estate-bubble-wont-pop-2f52f23709f8

More from the same author:

https://survivingtomorrow.org/an-open-letter-to-airbnb-8b1b58b4ad33

Edited January 30, 2022 by Eos

[Pawz4me]

There are very, very few properties for sale here. Every day on our local FB page there are postings asking if anyone has a home or land that's available for sale/going to be available soon, and even more people asking about available rentals. It's going to be interesting to see what happens in the spring.

Edited January 30, 2022 by Pawz4me

[MEmama]

30 minutes ago, Eos said:

They don't get a foot in the door.  And it's never going back.  Vacation rentals are the worst, but all rentals bring income to investors.  Feudalism was brutal but the income for the owners of land was spectacular and in many cases those same income streams flow to the descendants even now, hundreds of years later.  Late-stage capitalism is coming full circle to this.  Regulation will be the only way out, unless we really want to wish for a Black Death-style intervention.

https://survivingtomorrow.org/this-real-estate-bubble-wont-pop-2f52f23709f8

More from the same author:

https://survivingtomorrow.org/an-open-letter-to-airbnb-8b1b58b4ad33

These are very depressing articles 😞 

[Carrie12345]

Well those articles hurt my stomach. 😕. I don’t know how much I buy into the RE taxes part (how is that sustainable?) but, as someone living in a heavy vacation rental area, I easily relate to that part.

We have gone back and forth SO many times over the past year, trying to decide whether or not to keep our current little house for our kids.  I WANT to, but always find reasons not to. Like the fact that it was cheaply built nearly 30 years ago and on track for some expensive work.  And yet… it’s a house. Though it is just one house and we have 5 kids, so there’s that.

I get the problematic nature of generational wealth, but what does it mean if parents with a little bit of ability choose not to extend that to their kids? It feels kind of like not homeschooling because it doesn’t help kids who need public school. (One of my least favorite arguments.)

I hate all of this.

[footballmom]

The prices here seem bananas but I don’t know what inventory looks like because I feel like I live in a three mile square - my neighborhood, Target and the grocery store, lol.  I will usually see a house is for sale while walking the dog and may not go that route again for a few weeks.  Anecdotally, there’s a house not far from me that is the first house off a very busy road.  They seem to not be under contract after several weeks.  They had it on the market a  few months ago and later pulled it off.  Not sure what the issue is. 

[Pawz4me]

I get a daily email from Zillow for properties going up for sale in my county. This morning there are two. One is a normal(ish) property for this county, with an asking price of $245k. But it's at the very southern end of the county, which makes for a long commute to anywhere that has a good amount of jobs. The other is a $1.6 million McMansion conveniently located, but that type of thing is a very niche market around here.

As far as generational wealth and property--My brother and I inherited about 15 or so acres when our mother died. It's the remains of our grandparents' farm, all that hasn't already been sold off long ago by other members of the family who inherited their share (the parts that have been sold off are full of modest homes now). People say why don't you go ahead and sell it, but . . property taxes are cheap here, and I tend to think it's a very good long term investment to hang on to it. Plus my nephew farms it, and as we all know--people need food, too.

[MEmama]

7 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

Well those articles hurt my stomach. 😕. I don’t know how much I buy into the RE taxes part (how is that sustainable?) but, as someone living in a heavy vacation rental area, I easily relate to that part.

We have gone back and forth SO many times over the past year, trying to decide whether or not to keep our current little house for our kids.  I WANT to, but always find reasons not to. Like the fact that it was cheaply built nearly 30 years ago and on track for some expensive work.  And yet… it’s a house. Though it is just one house and we have 5 kids, so there’s that.

I get the problematic nature of generational wealth, but what does it mean if parents with a little bit of ability choose not to extend that to their kids? It feels kind of like not homeschooling because it doesn’t help kids who need public school. (One of my least favorite arguments.)

I hate all of this.

I guess I figure that if we can help DS financially, helping to create a stable footing in his life, he will have the ability to spend more money in his local economy thus helping his community. I understand generational wealth issues, but when we are talking about people of “regular” means— not billionaires, you know?— it makes sense to me to use it to help build up the next generation so they can be economically contributing members of society. It doesn’t do anyone any good to scrape by if they don’t need to. Now, I’m sure I’ll get roasted for having a privileged perspective and it’s true I do, but why not help our kids if we can? Why not “keep the money/house/investments in the family” in an effort to stabilise the next generation? 

DS wouldn’t have any interest in inheriting our house because he doesn’t want to settle down in this area, but if he did I would absolutely pass it on. As it is, we’ve considered buying a small apartment in his city so he has a stable place to live through university and beyond, should he choose to stay. The real estate market there is literally impossible for young people to get into; I’m not sure what he would do if we couldn’t help out. 

[Eos]

Our house is all we have to leave for our four kids - our business is our only retirement plan so will have to sell at some point.  Possibly one of the kids would want to run it but would need to support us if so.  I want our kids to be able to buy their own homes but I don't know if that's going to be possible.

[Farrar]

Seems to still be crazy. The house next door to us is empty right now and I'm trying to figure out what's happening with it. I know they said they were going to sell it, but we weren't close to the neighbors and didn't hear the whole plan. They're totally gone now to Europe and there have been workers over there off and on in the last week (blasting music in an empty house with nothing to absorb the sound means I REALLY hear it). But the house isn't listed and never was. I'm wondering if they just sold it to one of these companies. I'm sort of dying to know what it goes for.

[Granny_Weatherwax]

My town currently has 109 homes for sale. Twenty five percent have seen price drops and houses are selling below asking price. Only 3 of the 109 are priced above $300,000.

Unfortunately, with the hospital closing and the resulting wave of displaced workers, the town anticipates even more homes coming on the market in the next few months. 
 

[gardenmom5]

Inventory is very low (common this time of year) - and prices continue to climb.  Entry level home prices are insane.  

 

[Selkie]

The real estate market is crazy here and has been for the past few years. The crime rate in Chicago is causing loads of city dwellers to pack up and move out to our rural county.

[Wheres Toto]

According to Zillow, my town of 5,000 people has 4 houses for sale.  One for $624,000 (3 bed, 2 bath, ranch, no square footage but looks under 2,000 sq feet) on the market 26 days and $1.2 million (5 bed, 3 bath, 3500 square feet, new construction) on the market for over a year, one is $356,700 (3 bed, 2 bath, bungalow, 1300 square feet) 94 days on market, and the last was 3.77 acres of land for $284,000 (no septic, well or anything already done). 

I know I see a lot more signs than that whenever I'm out.

[gardenmom5]

2 hours ago, Eos said:

They don't get a foot in the door.  And it's never going back.  Vacation rentals are the worst, but all rentals bring income to investors.  Feudalism was brutal but the income for the owners of land was spectacular and in many cases those same income streams flow to the descendants even now, hundreds of years later.  Late-stage capitalism is coming full circle to this.  Regulation will be the only way out, unless we really want to wish for a Black Death-style intervention.

https://survivingtomorrow.org/this-real-estate-bubble-wont-pop-2f52f23709f8

More from the same author:

https://survivingtomorrow.org/an-open-letter-to-airbnb-8b1b58b4ad33

while there are a number of people with rentals  - the rental market is also extremely tight.

The problem in my area is the sheer amount of techies and what they can afford to pay for a house vs what "normal" jobs can afford to pay for a house.  People pour into this area from other parts of the US, and other countries to work in tech.  The school district, is 44% ASIAN (down from a high of 52%) for the entire district.

They've been tearing down older houses on my street and building mcmansions - most of the buyers - are Asian immigrants. (the couple next door are Czech. the other next door - who just finished doing a tear down 3/4ths of their house (which it needed) and rebuild it, are Indian). Two doors behind me and directly across the street are Armenians.  This is pretty common in my city.  One of the Armenians, is renting out that house and now living somewhere else, but has talked about tearing it down and building something he likes because he likes our street better than where he is currently.)

The other rental - kitty-corner - is owned by a vietnamese guy who bought it back in the 80s.  At least after the debacle that was his last section eight rental (drug dealing and DV) he stopped doing them, seriously cleaned it up and now has mostly had college students/single guys.

Edited January 30, 2022 by gardenmom5

[Wheres Toto]

We have a very small bungalow (less than 800 square feet) in a desirable area.  At one point we were looking to move or rebuild on our lot but I finally convinced dh we should just fix up the house.  He's 65, I'm 52 our younger children are 14 and 16 (oldest is 27).   We have enough room.   At this point in time, financially I feel like this is the right decision.  Our house is actually very good for aging in place since it has no stairs.   

We do plan to leave our house to the three kids, that along with life insurance should allow one of them to buy out the others if that's what they want.

[elegantlion]

I live in a town of about 75k. Inventory is lower than last summer, quality is a lot lower too. It seems those with move in homes sold last summer, so homes that are move in ready sell quickly - in/off the listings in less than a week. The ones sitting on the market are high priced, overpriced, or need work - from cosmetic to true repair. My mom bought her house in fall 2016. Now homes 1/2 the size of hers are selling for the same price. 

Add to that, this is an area in economic stagnation - people are moving out faster than moving in - so imo a lot of the sales are people moving around town or leaving. It seems that everyone who wanted to upgrade their home did so last summer. 

SO and I were on the verge of starting to look at houses when our situation changed and now we also may need to move away. I watch the listings everyday and so many homes that would be right for us have come and gone. It's frustrating to watch the prices move up so quickly. I'm hoping by fall we'll know where we will be. If we can stay here we'll be able to buy sooner because housing prices are lower overall despite the rising numbers. If we have to move to a larger city, we'll have to rent longer. 
 

[MEmama]

2 hours ago, Farrar said:

. I'm sort of dying to know what it goes for.

On my phone I literally keep a running list of houses I walk/drive by so I can look up their price and age. Lol. None are ever actually for sale— I just love to know what they might sell for and to look at photos. The old properties fascinate me. 🙂 

[frogger]

The price hasn't changed much for the past five years. It meanders up then down just a bit so pretty stable.

The inventory though for my little town is ludicrous. The only new construction is huge. 3000+ square feet, mult- car garages, huge lots. When I searched for a condo, I got "no results". 

So it appears you have to have almost half a million or access to there abouts to get something in my town. There was a couple older ones under that but looked like you would need a lot of money to fix them.  When we first moved here we bought an older little 1000 ft ranch. I didn't see anything like that for sale. Condos exist here but it appears demand exceeds supply. 

 

Edited to add: the nearby city does have some smaller units available if you can deal with the crime rate. 

Edited January 30, 2022 by frogger

[SanDiegoMom]

I agree the prices are crazy, new house starts are low, and investment companies buying up properties as rentals need regulation. But I do have to question the author of the article when they want to literally ban the entire rental market. That's insane.  Could you imagine what that would do to military families? To young people just starting out? There is a huge need to have a rental market. One that is regulated better maybe, but banning all for profit real estate investment?  Not very well thought out at all. 

I say this as a family that has owned three rentals at one time and rented almost exclusively to other military. 

But I don't want to pick one point out to argue against when the whole of the issue of high prices is definitely a problem. So crazy that we went from the subprime crisis, with houses prices skyrocketing and balloon mortgages and 100 percent financing being the issue, and now we have cash purchases and 20 percent down payments being low!  

[Faith-manor]

18 minutes ago, MEmama said:

I guess I figure that if we can help DS financially, helping to create a stable footing in his life, he will have the ability to spend more money in his local economy thus helping his community. I understand generational wealth issues, but when we are talking about people of “regular” means— not billionaires, you know?— it makes sense to me to use it to help build up the next generation so they can be economically contributing members of society. It doesn’t do anyone any good to scrape by if they don’t need to. Now, I’m sure I’ll get roasted for having a privileged perspective and it’s true I do, but why not help our kids if we can? Why not “keep the money/house/investments in the family” in an effort to stabilise the next generation? 

DS wouldn’t have any interest in inheriting our house because he doesn’t want to settle down in this area, but if he did I would absolutely pass it on. As it is, we’ve considered buying a small apartment in his city so he has a stable place to live through university and beyond, should he choose to stay. The real estate market there is literally impossible for young people to get into; I’m not sure what he would do if we couldn’t help out. 

I do think the real estate market will right itself in the next ten years. The Silent Generation is rapidly dying off as are the first third of the Boomers. Gen X, Millenials, are really struggling to afford the current prices, and Gen Z is a group that has self identified as not likely to invest in home ownership because they expect to change jobs and move many, many times in the early years of their careers. They are pretty adamantly opposed to having kids so many of the family homes with lots of bedrooms, and yards, and such are not the kind of thing they want to buy. So I do think within ten years there will be more homes for sale than there are buyers which will drive the price down. We bought our retirement home for reasons other than investment, and have no expectation that it will retain its current market value much less appreciate.

[prairiewindmomma]

My metro has been “full” up against the growth barrier for a while. We have regulations on rental properties and new regulations encouraging infills and “middle housing” like townhomes and such. The problem is that even affordable housing isn’t affordable with west coast prices. Median home prices are up over $100k from this time last year largely because we are still short tens of thousands of housing units for our metro and a lot of families live multi-generationally as a result. Income restricted apartments are especially in short supply.

[Faith-manor]

We had a brief, big spike this past summer when a bunch of people who thought "Let's retire in the country" bought up houses that had land (there wasn't a lot for sale either so some even walked up to home owners and made offers on houses not on the market), and then it was all over. There isn't a lot of inventory, but what there is is back to taking 3 months t a year to sell, and will sell below asking price.

So it is back to a 3 bed 2 bath 1400 sq ft ranch or something similar going for less than 150,000 in the town north of us, and right around 100,000 nearby. There are no good jobs so there is no reason for young folks to stay nor for anyone to move here except to retire.

Some of those retirees will be happy, but a larger group of them are bring big babies about the lack of maintenance on the side roads in winter, and come spring when manure goes on the fields, they are going to be e,tra unhappy. Well, and then the inevitable use of their wells and skeptics as though they are on city utilities and find out how much one pays for septic pumping. It is the same old same old. They romanticized life in the country without educating themselves. But this current crop paid TOO much for their properties and are already underwater. They aren't going to get it back, and are now stuck. We have a little bit of this every time something happens to cause a wave of retirement like when one of the Big Threes puts together a really nice early retirement package. In this case it was year two covid and people nearing 62 being "done" with work. The number of teachers from the northern burbs of Detroit was surprising. One of them hit a deer with her car, and I stopped to see if she was okay. She wanted to know how common this is. Really common, unbelievably common, this is why you are paying a shocking rate for comprehensive coverage on your car compared to when you live in Rochester. Poor gal. She was pretty shook up. And of course she thought someone would come get the carcass. Nope. It is going to lay in that ditch and then become very stinky this spring. The county cut all money for roadkill removal.

[Frances]

1 hour ago, SanDiegoMom said:

I agree the prices are crazy, new house starts are low, and investment companies buying up properties as rentals need regulation. But I do have to question the author of the article when they want to literally ban the entire rental market. That's insane.  Could you imagine what that would do to military families? To young people just starting out? There is a huge need to have a rental market. One that is regulated better maybe, but banning all for profit real estate investment?  Not very well thought out at all. 

I say this as a family that has owned three rentals at one time and rented almost exclusively to other military. 

But I don't want to pick one point out to argue against when the whole of the issue of high prices is definitely a problem. So crazy that we went from the subprime crisis, with houses prices skyrocketing and balloon mortgages and 100 percent financing being the issue, and now we have cash purchases and 20 percent down payments being low!  

I don’t think banning the entire rental market is either feasible or doable. But in my state, some of the small coastal towns have been able to stop any more houses from becoming vacation rentals, so that maybe more people who work there can hopefully some day buy a house there. And some places in Canada are successfully using taxes to make it less attractive for foreigners to buy a house  and leave it sit vacant most of the year. Unfortunately, most of these efforts often come too late after the problem has reached crisis levels in a particular area. Personally, I think some US cities should already have the extra taxes for vacant vacation/investment homes in place. I remember reading a story a few years back about Chinese people buying property in Boston so that their young children would have housing when they eventually went to college there.

There are other programs happening in the US that don’t end the rental market, but do help with those interested in purchasing. Community land trust homes in Montana are one example.

https://missoulian.com/news/local/largest-affordable-home-ownership-project-in-mt-history-eyed-for-northside-missoula/article_70f922c9-5a87-5cf2-88ad-0ca3702d35d1.html

 

 

Edited January 30, 2022 by Frances

[Eos]

1 hour ago, SanDiegoMom said:

There is a huge need to have a rental market. One that is regulated better maybe, but banning all for profit real estate investment?  Not very well thought out at all. 

I agree.  

[Bootsie]

1 hour ago, SanDiegoMom said:

I agree the prices are crazy, new house starts are low, and investment companies buying up properties as rentals need regulation. But I do have to question the author of the article when they want to literally ban the entire rental market. That's insane.  Could you imagine what that would do to military families? To young people just starting out? There is a huge need to have a rental market. One that is regulated better maybe, but banning all for profit real estate investment?  Not very well thought out at all. 

I say this as a family that has owned three rentals at one time and rented almost exclusively to other military. 

My area would be hard hit if the rental market were banned.  I live in a university neighborhood in which about 50% of the students live on campus, with the others living in rentals in the neighborhood.  Professors move to town and want to rent until they decide what part of town they want to live in.  We have visiting professors in for a year who want to rent.  We also have some military and military contractors in the area who desire short-term rental housing.  I rented for several years because DH was working five hours away (where we owned a house) and we were commuting.  I would have lost a fantastic job opportunity if I could not have rented housing.  

The author's arguments seem to ignore some basic economic realities.  Companies cannot keep buying up properties for AirBNBs for which they can charge $2500 per night--there is limited demand for that.  It also simplifies the returns that are being earned in a way that hides who is making money.  If I own a home that I paid $300,000 for and an investment company comes in and pays $500,000 for the home to rent it out--yes the company is hoping to make a return on its investment.  But, I, as an individual just made a huge return on my investment.  Why would it be OK to passively earn a return by selling a piece of property for more than I paid for it but not OK to passively earn a return from renting the property? 

 

 

[Clarita]

Real estate is crazy expensive in my area as usual. I agree with @Bootsie. The author is ignoring some things such as some people do want rentals (and not just AirBNBs). AirBNB are usually only affordable for short vacation period of times not for months or years. (I know that changed a little bit in the pandemic because hotels and the like have been hit hard by the pandemic.) 

I do know people who have the means to purchase houses but choose to rent for the flexibility and they don't have to do house maintenance.

[athena1277]

There was a local news article here last week talking about how much the area is growing and that there isn’t enough housing, even though there is new construction of houses and apartments everywhere.  Most houses are selling within 2 weeks, many within 2 days.  We bought our house almost 5 years ago.  We haven’t done anything to it besides necessary maintenance and it needs some updating.  However we could probably sell it for at least $80K more than we paid for it.  

[plansrme]

I have no idea about my own market, but I've been following the market in a small town in a western state where we hope to retire. We are actively looking for either a lot to build on or a house. One unfinished house had been on the market two years. TWO. Stinkin'. Years. We looked at it over Christmas, asked our agent to get some more information, asked our agent again for the same information (this was the third time I'd asked about this house, so this is all his fault), received and reviewed said information and texted him that we wanted to make an offer, and BAM, the house was under contract. It literally went under contract the day before we were going to offer asking price. After 2 years!!! I am still bitter. There are literally no more suitable houses available, so we made an offer on an overpriced lot, rejected the counter, and the seller immediately raised the listing price $20K. Eye roll. (He has already raised the listing price $30K, now $50K, since September.) So I googled and easily found contact info for the owners of the empty lot next to his to see if they were interested in selling; they were, and we are in negotiations with them. 

So all that to say that in one very small town out there, the real estate market is still hot.

[Sneezyone]

We’re finally selling our rental for reasons that have nothing to do with the tenants and everything to do with the fact that my sister cannot find an affordable property to rent in her metro. We’re gonna buy a less expensive home that she can rent/afford long-term and expect to have to grab a fixer. Homes in her price range don’t even make it to listing without multiple offers.

Edited January 30, 2022 by Sneezyone

[Arcadia]

The newer homes sell faster while the older ones sit longer in the market. Rents are high here but home prices are even worse. New one bedroom condos are close to a million and two bedrooms townhomes are at $1.7M. Those we know who managed to buy in the past few years bought new as they can’t outbid for resale homes but they can get mortgage approval for move-in ready homes.

[Kanin]

9 hours ago, MEmama said:

Houses here rarely make it to market, and sell for historic highs. I recently read that there are SIX houses for sale in the city of Portland, our largest city. I don’t know how anyone gets a foot in the door in this market, it’s insane. 

Ugh. I read that, too. How can anyone move here, or move within the city? Crazy! I don't know that it's much better in other towns. Even my mom's somewhat dingy town has only a handful of houses for sale. 

[Eos]

I fully agree with the above posters that there need to be rentals, and I don't entirely agree with everything in the articles I posted.  But the idea that investment groups large and small are buying most of the available housing stock, whether they rent it at affordable prices or as vacation rentals, is disturbing to me.  They are thinking very long term, longer than individuals, couples, or families.  It also causes a "if you can't beat 'em join 'em" mentality that is appealing in today's volatile investment climate. 

[MEmama]

19 minutes ago, Eos said:

I fully agree with the above posters that there need to be rentals, and I don't entirely agree with everything in the articles I posted.  But the idea that investment groups large and small are buying most of the available housing stock, whether they rent it at affordable prices or as vacation rentals, is disturbing to me.  They are thinking very long term, longer than individuals, couples, or families.  It also causes a "if you can't beat 'em join 'em" mentality that is appealing in today's volatile investment climate. 

And it’s a huge problem everywhere, not just North America and not just in big cities (as we know too well). It’s nearly impossible to get into the housing market in Dublin, and I think Amsterdam recently created new housing laws that restrict investment groups and short term (Air B&B) rentals. 

It will be interesting to see what kinds of controls are actually implemented and prove effective, but in the meantime we'll have a couple of generations who essentially are shut out of the market altogether. The ramifications are huge and far reaching; countries with forward thinking governments will come out ahead, I think. 

[Frances]

Things do seem to be settling down a bit in my city. Normally in my neighborhood, houses sell without ever coming on the market. But during the pandemic, we’ve had four houses go on the market. All are now sold. Personally, I think at least some of the buyers paid too much, especially our new next door neighbors. I’m not sure either they or their realtor did enough due diligence. And they’d been looking since before the pandemic started. I’m surprised at their surprise by the condition of the house given what they and the former owners shared about the appraisals and inspections and the fact that they knew they were buying from a couple who invests in real estate, not from people who actually lived in the house long term. So the majority of work done was done as cheaply as possible for cosmetic purposes or to be just enough to pass inspection. (Not implying all landlords do this, but we live next door, so saw things like spray painting the house with zero prep besides taping off windows, no washing, no scraping, no caulking, etc.).

Edited January 30, 2022 by Frances

[Sneezyone]

1 hour ago, Eos said:

I fully agree with the above posters that there need to be rentals, and I don't entirely agree with everything in the articles I posted.  But the idea that investment groups large and small are buying most of the available housing stock, whether they rent it at affordable prices or as vacation rentals, is disturbing to me.  They are thinking very long term, longer than individuals, couples, or families.  It also causes a "if you can't beat 'em join 'em" mentality that is appealing in today's volatile investment climate. 

It's definitely an issue. Long-term investors have been buying up lots and homes in the central part of the city for a decade now in my sister's area. That's where we'll be looking too so she's close to work and childcare. Still, it's super messed up. We've actually considered buying *two* just to recoup the financial loss we're taking on all of this. At least we're in the position to do it tho. I don't know where my tenants are going to find a place as big/well maintained as mine.

[popmom]

Inventory is low here but starting to increase a bit. I haven’t checked lately to see how many listings are under contract. We are planning to sell in 18-24 months, but I don’t know where we’re going yet exactly. My hope is that if interest rates go up this year, prices (((might))) cool off a bit or at least slow things down enough that we can get a foot in the door. It works in our favor if rates go up because we don’t owe much on our house and don’t plan to finance much on the next purchase.
We are wanting to move to a rural small town area about an hour from here. There are a few areas that we are considering. We would prefer to build, but desirable land gets snatched up fast, too. 

Edited January 30, 2022 by popmom

[readinmom]

I went on Zillow to look at some numbers.  Homes here are up between 30 to 70% in listing price from original purchase.  There was one mobile home for sale in a park, great school district, close to amenities, priced at 80,000.  The space rent?  1382 not including utilities, etc. Homes here rarely make it to market.  A house apparently sold a few streets over.  The only reason any of us knew was the moving vans leaving, arriving.  

It would be great to cash in on the market, but where do you go?  We could never afford to buy here in this market.  Our dream retirement city has us priced out.  If we had followed through three years ago, we could have owned a home for 300,000 cheaper.  The property taxes get hiked up also, making this ridiculously expensive.  All of this has made us re-evaluate our retirement plans.  

[Bootsie]

4 hours ago, Eos said:

I fully agree with the above posters that there need to be rentals, and I don't entirely agree with everything in the articles I posted.  But the idea that investment groups large and small are buying most of the available housing stock, whether they rent it at affordable prices or as vacation rentals, is disturbing to me.  They are thinking very long term, longer than individuals, couples, or families.  It also causes a "if you can't beat 'em join 'em" mentality that is appealing in today's volatile investment climate. 

IME, investment groups think much more short-term than individuals do.  They must expect to make a return on investment quickly or they will not invest.  

[madteaparty]

There are 10 bids on teardown I’m looking at, this within 4 days of hitting the market.  Above asking. 

Edited January 31, 2022 by madteaparty

[Resilient]

My house is up 29% over this date last year.  I won't go into more details but this house is not "worth" what it would sell for in 15 minutes flat.  Nice house, but not worth THAT much...except it is because someone will pay for it.  I am so sorry for first-time buyers.  It is impossible to tell whether you are getting on the real0estate escalator or buying into a bubble.  

[Carrie12345]

With some of the tiny numbers posted, I decided to try to narrow down my specific area. Since zip codes don’t really align with geography here, I normally set my searches county-wide (170k pop) and then just zoom my maps, but my township (pop 7k-ish) is oddly shaped, so I always get outliers, lol.

So it looks like there are about 15 active listings in my local area. (A few are technically in other townships, but within the developments that overlap borders.) When I add “pending” listings back in, it goes over 40. That’s excluding land-only listings.

There are hardly any under $200k, which is mind boggling for the area. Well, it probably wouldn’t seem as mind boggling if the area hadn’t tanked for so long before. Median household income for the area is $65,000, and median value of owner-occupied homes *was $148k. Which made sense. 
The mean travel time to work is 43 minutes, so we obviously don’t have much in the way of local employment to offer.  That is, until the warehouses get built 😭, but that’s not exactly going to be a big boost to wages.

Now that I’ve laid it all out in more detail, I’m more depressed.

As a side note, we received a letter asking to buy our new land for around 2/3 of what we paid for it in 2021.  I found that particularly audacious, given the increased demand.
I also get lots of texts about my current house. I decided to reply to one and they were really offended by my tirade. 😆