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The real estates
TresstheFool
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
For some time, I have enjoyed watching certain real estate programs because I have been unable to understand how a young couple can purchase a home for $300,000 and sell it two years later for $600,000. I have also been unable to understand how this couple, who make less than $50,000 a year, could afford the mortgage in the first place. Something seemed, um, wrong about that. And then, lo and behold, the housing market fell down and went boom. Now, everyone is all about the finger pointing. So my question is, whose fault is it? Buyers? Sellers? Builders? Banks? Wall Street? Greenspan? And how much responsibility does the homeowner have?
I live in Houston, and the housing market is strong here, mostly because homes are so cheap. However, home prices are still suffering because people are foreclosing and the 'as is' bank-owned homes are driving down prices. I'm curious to know how the market is in your area and what you think about it.
I would also love to hear from the economists and how they think this will affect the economy, and how bad they think things will get.
I live in Houston, and the housing market is strong here, mostly because homes are so cheap. However, home prices are still suffering because people are foreclosing and the 'as is' bank-owned homes are driving down prices. I'm curious to know how the market is in your area and what you think about it.
I would also love to hear from the economists and how they think this will affect the economy, and how bad they think things will get.
TresstheFool on
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I think the media is hyping this up. It's affecting my area, and we are in a period of huge growth with lots of people moving from the city into West Virginia(....why, I don't know) that are generally loaded. I think it will blow over once the roving eye of media scariness moves on to something more scary.
They were rather stupid for giving so much money to people with horrible credit rates, but that's about it. There's not much predatory lending going on, it's more idiots asking for more money at rates that they can't afford being given it by even bigger idiots. I'd say that Greenspan and the Fed have some of the blame as well since they essentially stopped the .com burst from causing a recession by creating a whole new bubble to shore up the economy. When it finally does burst things are going to suck, but it won't be too terrible.
Wow, that's a lot of questions. As a matter of fault, I'd say sellers are completely off the hook. If someone wants to pay me a large sum of money for a baseball card or a house, I am supposed to demand they pay less? Builders (I assume you mean developers) are in a similar category, but they're taking a risk often with their own money. Banks have a lot of this on their collective heads for lending a lot money to bad risks and certain wall street types have allowed this to happen.
Greenspan is a bit of a different case. According to most reputable economic types, the US should have been in a big-ass (yes, that's the technical term) recession after the dot com bust and 9/11. Interest rates were lowered and money flooded the market due to federal reserve policies and the recession was quite minor compared to what was expected at the time and even looking back. I know that's a very, very simplified overview, but the housing bubble can be partly (largely?) attributed as a side effect to economic policies that had an overall beneficial effect and achieved what was intended.
Buyers are to blame for a large part of the bubble. Some took stupid loans because they wanted to buy at that time and bad loans were the only option. Others purchased real estate as an investment and further drove up prices. Personally, I find it hard to blame either because wanting a home and wanting to make money legally and ethically aren't bad things.
I do think the US economy is in real trouble regardless of the housing market, but that's another thread.
As for my market, I live on the big island west of Vancouver and prices are still going up as they are most places in Canada, though the market has slowed down significantly. For the most part in Canada, the areas that missed most of the upswing are the ones that are seeing it now.
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
Vancouver prices are higher, I believe.
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
A lot of dumb shit was flying around, the market is normalizing, which means the ridiculous prices are going away. Sad that first time home buyers will be fucked because of idiotic loans being given to fucking morons.
pleasepaypreacher.net
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
A good agent would know whats in your price range and be able to help you with loans (as they see that shit more often then joe public). In this crazy market it was the norm for people to buy properties without doing inspections, that's just insane.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Just what is the difference between a townhouse and a condo, anyway?
Vancouver prices are fucking retarded.
Friends of my aunt owned a basement suite near downtown Vancouver. It was small - I would say that it was about 800 sq. feet. They sold it for $500,000. Friends of ours just bought a two-story home in Burnaby (a 'burb of Vancouver) for $600,000. Condos are selling for $350,000 in Burnaby, Coquitlam, and Surrey and they go up to something like $750,000 in downtown Vancouver. I don't understand how people can pay that kind of money for what is essentially a fancy apartment.
I'm moving back up north.
The short version is that in a condo you own what's inside your units walls and have a share in everything else. In a townhouse, you also own you the roof and the bit of land outside your place with much less common ownership. The long version is that it depends mainly on the legal structure of ownership and I won't bore you with the details.
Also, Vic's average price for a SFD was $576,000 last month.
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
The house is in wonderful shape, he can easily afford the mortgage but he wants to head south and retire but he can't get a single offer on his home.
Veevee, does the city tax you based on assessed value? We have that trouble in Houston. What the city's assessed value is doesn't count for much, since it's all about the taxes.
Fuck them, I will buy that house and fix it up someday.
All of a sudden that 5 year interest only period was up, and they tried to sell the house. One problem though, everyone else did this at the same time. Of course these folks had a hard time lowering their prices. They were supposed to make 200-300K on profit. Many just end up losing their house due to too much inventory, and not being able to swing the payments.
So the morale I took from this experience...Don't buy a house for investment purposes unless you can afford the payments. This means fixed loans. If the only way you can afford to buy a house is on interest only, then maybe you're not ready to buy that house.
Yes, but three of the houses around his sold for above their fair market value in that 2 years time. The problem in selling it is that his house is a rather large one thats about 1.5 times the size of any other house in the surrounding blocks.
You know, that's interesting, because I hear contradictory things about that. Some realtors swear that you should have the smallest house in the neighborhood, and some say that you should have the biggest. Perhaps it depends on the area. Still, how is the neighborhood? I still wouldn't think there would be that much trouble selling a bigger house if the neighborhood is okay.
Its a wonderful neighborhood across the street from the police station and fire department. All the neighbors know each other and say hi and stop to talk when they see each other outside. It's an odd situation that the realtor isn't sure what to do to help. Roof and siding was replaced/repaired a year ago and has a nice wood burning fireplace, and the basement is a movie room with a 100 inch screen from a projector with lay-z-boy recliners as the seating.