This insane housing market.

[barkley]

One developer paid $7.8m for a 0.09 acres lot ($80m an acre) to buy a triplex near our house. The triplex itself wasn't worth anything. They just wanted the lot so they could build a 24 story apartment building. People in the Puget Sound have to move far away from Seattle if they want an affordable house. The closer you get to downtown the more expensive the houses get.

when the seattle region employers started allowing more staff to work remotely during the height of covid and then decided to permit it on a more permanent basis our region (eastern side of the state) got a massive influx of home buyers. no wonder-the prices here are much lower than on the west side though that influx has driven the cost/demand here through the roof as well. even those that have to make an appearance in their west side offices 2 or 3 days a week are finding that they can take a flight from spokane to seattle in under the amount of time it took them to commute within mere miles of their homes over there.

 

[bcwife76]

It's insane here but it always has been. I'm just outside Vancouver BC, about 40 minutes from downtown. So deep in the suburbs. One and two bedroom condos in our neighborhood start at $450,000. Townhouses start at around $600,000. No single detached houses under $1million anymore. A house on our block with our floor plan (there are 4 or 5 different floor plans in oir development) sold for $250,000 OVER asking in 7 days. This was just before Christmas (when the housing market tends to be quiet). So whoever bought that house paid 3 times what we paid for ours 10 years ago If only we were ready to sell right now

 

[disny_luvr]

The neighbors across the street from us are moving. Last week a sign went up in their yard that said “coming soon”. Today, the sign changed from “coming soon” to “for sale”. There were showings all night tonight. When my husband got home from work the listing agent was at her car and approached my husband to see if we were interested in selling our house. She said there are already 40 showings scheduled for our neighbor’s house. It’s listed at $365,000 and she expects them to get well over $400,000. We aren’t interested, but with prices like that, it’s tempting!

 

[AustinTink]

Our current house has doubled in price in the last 15 years. Our last house is now tripled what we paid for it. And our first home is currently going for 4 times what we paid back in 1997. If only we had the forethought to keep that one as a rental. I never imagined Austin would boom the way it has. When I moved here in the early 90's it was a sleepy college town with a small, burgeoning tech community. Well, I married one of those tech guys and we watched Austin explode in size ever since. It's truly insane. The "country" areas 30 minutes outside of Austin are now going in the millions for a home on an acre of land. You couldn't give away land in some of these places 25 years ago.

I have a friend who bought her acreage in 1990 for 10k. It's a few acres in an area where the roads did not even reach yet. Her home and property is now worth millions and is considered close to everything in the city. There were literally no roads leading there when she first showed me the land!! What a smart gal. I should have followed her lead.

 

[happily single]

I closed on my house one year ago last week. I paid $26k over asking and covered all closing costs. I also waived the home inspection (still did inspection but didn’t ask seller to fix to credit anything).

it took me over 6 months to find a house. I lost out on several offers I wrote. One house I saw sold for over $140k asking!
There was another house I really wanted, but it was a short sale involved in probate court. When I first toured it the agent had 4 all cash offers over asking. This house would not qualify for traditional financing as needed all new heating, electrical, roof and windows, in addition to all new interior updates! According to Redfin it’s fallen through 2x and is currently off market.

 

[pigletto]

We bought in 2019. Consulted with a realtor and they would list it now for just under double what we paid. Every other day we talk about moving out of province and just buying something outright with the profit and being mortgage free. But the reality is our young adult kids and aging parents are here. And as good as a paid for house feels, it wouldn‘t be so great if we were lonely and missing family.

 

[Colleen27]

My son lucked into his place - the seller only entertained offers from buyers who intended to occupy the property themselves. He absolutely could have gotten more, probably in cash, from an investor-buyer; DS was either outbid or lost out to equal bids without the hassle of a mortgage on maybe a dozen properties over the course of his search. But this house had been in the same family a while and I guess the deceased owner felt strongly about slumlords (DS lives in Detroit) and so the executor of the estate honored their wishes by favoring buyers looking for a primary residence rather than an investment opportunity. Houses in that neighborhood are renting for 50-75% more than DS's mortgage payment, so it is a lucrative market for investors and sales trends reflect that.

 

[PollyannaMom]

A family I know is going through the same thing - they've made several offers over asking, but got outbid each time.

For anyone ready to downsize from a big house into a small retirement one, I imagine it's a great time. But I feel really bad for people who are ready to move from an apartment to a house, or to a larger home, or to move for work.

 

[tzolkin]

I have a friend who was looking and she said all the houses needed an additional 30-60k cash on hand over asking price.

I assume this is because they think the appraisal may come back lower than the offer price so the buyer would need cash to make up the difference? We just purchased a house for an Airbnb and the seller wanted us to sign stating that we still wanted to purchase for that price even if the appraisal came back for less.

We sold our previous home to downsize in 2019 for exactly what he had paid for it in 2014. Of course, now it’s worth at least $100k more

 

[firefly_ris]

Yep.

I am 0 of 4 on offers so far. The last one I offered 10k over asking plus a flexible closing that the sellers needed. Didn't get it. That one really messed with me mentally too. Had about 2 days of full blown depression (I have a lot going on atm and it was that last straw). The market sucks, especially in my price range.

It has been tough, same boat as you. We are looking to make a primary residence out of NYS and also trying to keep our home here for short-term rentals and personal use. We have also put in 4 offers all over asking, fast closing, etc. no dice yet. We had been talking about getting out of the state several years ago, but had kind of decided to wait until the kids were out of school, but recently decided I'd actually rather do it while they are young and not so established here, so unfortunately go time is right now. On the bright side with all the paperwork digitized these days it doesn't take long for the realtor to do the offers so we are just being aggressive and making offers left and right now, assuming eventually something's gotta stick. We are the type who buy fixer uppers and houses others generally find unappealing and that usually gives us an edge, but not now.

 

[tiggersmom6]

We are empty nesters and a few years from retirement. Because of the market, we decided to try to sell our house. Good if we could, no big deal if we couldn’t. We were asking well above comparisons in our neighborhood. The house was on the market for 4 days before we got an offer for asking price. The person who wanted it was living in another state and had her daughter walk thru the house while she was on Facetime. She made the offer, waived the inspections, appraisal, etc. and offered cash. And the house was sold! We are renting a townhouse until we retire. Hopefully, it will be a buyers’ market by the time we are ready to buy.

 

[hhisc16]

Makes me wonder how long the crazy housing market will stay...
We bought a house in Feb 2020 and the house is now worth 30% more according to a new appraisal by the bank. Crazy!

 

[crjack]

We sold my dad's house almost a year ago. Our market in Boston area is always high but even for here it is crazy!

As much as I was grateful for the offers (had a big reverse mortgage to pay off) it made me sad too thinking about how much things have changed since my parents raised our family there.

None of their grandchildren could ever have afforded his house. I wished terribly I could have selected an offer not based just on price because my parents would have wanted a young family to live there.

 

[ChrisFL]

What's worse is that apartment rentals can go up substantially in the same areas as housing prices due to some insane thing where the fair market value is tied to home prices or something. A co-worker had her rent go up by $300 a month for a small 2 bedroom apartment!

 

[_19disnA]

Makes me wonder how long the crazy housing market will stay...

I wonder the same thing as well. Even if someone's house price has risen a lot recently, when you sell you still have to buy another place to live which likely will have increased as well. Seems like chasing your tail and no one wins. Think some of this is related to the artificially low interest rates which tends to encourage bubbles in things like housing. If you don't have to move now due to a job or similar situation I would try to wait 6 moths and expect the markets to cooled off by then.

 

[Darcy03231]

A co-worker's son just bought a starter home (3 bed/1 bath ranch style, 1.300 s.f.) and paid $30lk over asking. He and his fiancée had made bids on multiple homes over the last year and lost out on all of them.

We bought our home 7 years ago on a lake. We paid $275,000, but it needed a lot of work and we probably put another $40-$50k into it. A house across the lake from ours that is smaller, no garage, has a smaller lot, and is not updated sold last fall for over $900,000!

 

[neverlandsky]

We’re in the market again. It’s insane. The rental market is even worse off.

New builts are 7-12 months out. Premium lot fees now attached. Credit checks just to get on a huge interest list for a release of 2-5 lots at a time. It’s 2006/2007 all over again.

Resale homes are extremely low inventory. Where it’s either not in a good location and sitting or the ones that are ok/good/great are pending within 1-3 days. Closing over asking, buyers giving unicorn offers: over asking, all cash, no contingencies. Can’t complain, it what we got when sold our home due to forced resignation and having to move back to our hometown. It is what it is.

Speaking of that, we sold 7 months ago. House 4 doors down from us closed the beginning of this month for $50K more. House across the street expected to close for $75K more. Average home prices in that area went from $500K to over $700K in 2 years. It doesn’t make sense. Yet the same is practically happening just about everywhere.

We currently rent at $1731 a month + fees attached, it’s $1850 for a 3 bedroom apartment. Rent though has jumped to $2400-$2700 per month and that’s just the base rent not including fees due to “marketplace rates”. Our lease renewal is coming up in 90 days. If they offer to renew with us. We have maintenance repairs that are needed for our unit, yet we’re scared to ask for them.

Looking at apartment rentals & home listings daily.

 

[RangerPooh]

We closed on a house at the end of November. We live in the burbs just outside of Memphis, TN. Our school district is one of the top in the state and you must reside within our city limits in order to attend. This makes demand for housing high.

Last May three friends and I watched as what seemed like a never ending loop of cars/people paraded in and out of a house that just hit the market in our neighborhood. We hung out in the driveway talking for over an hour and the traffic did not let up. We all live in the original subdivision for our city which is 40 years old, and is considered 'entry level' for the community. From what we heard, they had multiple offers within the first hour of showing. Needless to say when we returned from our moms weekend backpacking trip, there was a 'sold sign'.

The home that we just bought was not the only one that we put in an offer for. We had two other offers, both outbid. One a cash offer by an investor. We're happy with our house and got it quickly, but they go fast and you need to be willing to increase your offer. Homes in our city have been hitting the market in the low 300K and go over 1m. Entry level subdivisions like ours (the ones with large backyards and no HOA ) as well as the over priced boushie subdivision surrounding the elementary school go first.

I'm glad that we got in when we did. We had watched for months as home prices increased and bidding wards occurred. We decided to wait for the fall when fewer homes hit the market, but also fewer people were looking (mid-school year). Sadly it seems you need to be ready to bid $5k-20k over list price in some subdivisions.

There's at house down the street that has a 'coming soon' sign in the yard. I'm curious how much it'll go for, or if it'll be sold before it even gets listed.

 

[dez1978]

A co-worker's son just bought a starter home (3 bed/1 bath ranch style, 1.300 s.f.) and paid $30lk over asking. He and his fiancée had made bids on multiple homes over the last year and lost out on all of them.

We bought our home 7 years ago on a lake. We paid $275,000, but it needed a lot of work and we probably put another $40-$50k into it. A house across the lake from ours that is smaller, no garage, has a smaller lot, and is not updated sold last fall for over $900,000!

We've seen that here as well. Lake Ozark has some tiny little 900sf houses that are not updated at all, like dark wood paneling and shag carpet selling for 300-400k. You'd need to put a ton into them to make them nice and they are still tiny. 3 years ago you could buy a furnished 3 bdrm house there for 250-300K and it be turnkey and ready to rent

 

[KittyKitty]

Great for the buyer, but very shady and bad for us… and the seller. We would easily have gone up another $10k (we needed to buy something quickly).

I've heard of buyers put in their offer as " $1K over best offer......." So you probably wouldn't have gotten it, or had to go way over in price.