Grrrr - home prices

[Crankyshank]

Originally posted by AllyandJack
I Now I wonder where the MA people will go to find a decent, affordable home since NH was where we all came.

Not everyone that left MA went to NH. Quite a few went to RI, myself included. Now the prices in RI have skyrocketed and I couldn't afford my own house I bought 2yrs ago if I was in the market today.

And the worst part is that my house is worth 1/3 of my parents' house is worth in MA (their house value tripled. yes tripled in 20yrs since they built the house) and I pay $the same in taxes that they do.

 

[NatureBoyChris]

I have a feeling because the values of houses has risen so rapidly, and because of all the new construction, this bubble will soon burst. Add on top of that the fact that interest rates will start rising after the election. I think in the next few years the real estate market will be very interesting. I think that home values are going to flatten and probably drop. People will not be able to afford a house, especially young couples such as my wife and I, if house prices continue to rise at the rate they are now. Especially since salaries are not growing at these rates.

Chris

 

[eeyore74]

Eek - some of the prices y'all mentioned were even worse than here! It just seems like the dream of getting a house isn't going to happen for a lot of us.

 

[jel0511]

Yep housing prices are CRAZY!!! In my nieghborhood, we built 5 years ago, and the price of our house is double what we paid for it! If we were trying to buy now, we couldn't afford it, or I'd have to go back to work to afford it. I have a feeling that's why there are so many expensive houses these days, Double incomes. In my neighborhood, there are many SAHM's, but the new people who are moving in, everyone works. I'm lucky that DH makes a good salary, and we can afford to live here. It's nuts with no end in sight around here. DH and I looked at houses in the next town over. It is a better mailing address, and with better schools. A fixer-upper 4 bedroom 3 bath house was well over 1 Million. This house needed close to $300k worth of work to make it livable. Completely NUTS! It wasn't a huge house either, only 3,000 sq ft and on half an acre. Real Estate taxes are the real killer here in NJ, with taxes being so high that I pay more per month in taxes than I did on my first NYC apartment!!!

 

[kdibattista]

INSANE!!!! We found a house that we liked listed for $258,000 (3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath, full finished basement). We passed because we weren't quite ready. 3 months later, that same exact model, in the same development but with an unfinished basement just sold for $305,000!!!!!! It's crazy how much prices around here have skyrocketed just in the past few months (although I am noticing that people are not swooping them up like they did a few months ago).

 

[bananiem]

Originally posted by eeyore74
I would love to live in Hundred Acre Wood!! Where in MN is it?

Rochester. It's a nice town.

 

[Tink&SquirtsMom]

I thought one point in that article was very interesting: People are refusing jobs at universities, hospitals, and excellent businesses in the Boston area because they can't afford housing. Something has got to give!

Something similiar happened where we used to live. There were major shortages of policemen, firemen, nurses and teachers cause no one with those jobs could afford to live there. They started actively recruiting nurses from other countries and even offering things like free cars (new VW Bugs) to people who'd sign a 2 year nursing contract. They also started programs giving grants for housing downpayments to teachers, policemen and firemen. During the height of the boom every fast food, retail establishment, etc was hiring because no one would ever keep those jobs. You couldn't even make rent on a studio apartment with them. And thats not even to mention the people with 6 figure salaries that couldn't afford a "crapshack" (as another poster so eloquently put it). Its so sad.

We moved back to where I grew up and now we're seeing the same thing happen here with home prices. I've posted before that our house has gone up $70,000 just since May of this year. Thats insane. I love our house to pieces and to me its worth every penny, but thats still insane.

 

[chrissyk]

Originally posted by Tink&SquirtsMom
And thats not even to mention the people with 6 figure salaries that couldn't afford a "crapshack" (as another poster so eloquently put it). Its so sad.

That's what my old neighbors and I all called our fixer-upper houses in MA, LOL! Sorry! It was true, though. Crapshack was probably a charitable term for the state that our house was in when we bought it I would say that it was a nicely-renovated crapshack when we sold it

 

[mudnuri]

WOW! I can't even begin to think about paying $400K unless it has a HUGE and by that I mean 30-40 acres with it!

here in VT in some places prices have gone WAY up- like Burlington, the major city and college town...but where we are, they've gone up- but not doubled or trippled.

We paid 88K for our 3 bedroom, 1 bath ranch with 1 car garage and a leval 1/2 acre, in a development. The ONLY development in our town. These houses were all built in the 60's. They're 2 styles of houses- ranches like mine, or raised ranches.

If we were to sell our house tomorrow- we could get 120K for it...that'd be the top price.

However, where we're looking to get the kids into school, 120K would buy the same house with NO LAND...

We've looked at a few houses close to 200K and they all are at least 4 bedroom 2 bath with 15-10 acres.

What our plan is- to wait till the interest rates rise, (and the bubble bursts) sell then, at probably 110-115K buy the same house that is now 200K for 175K and then refinance when the rates come back down.

Brandy

 

[PamOKW]

Originally posted by mudnuri
here in VT in some places prices have gone WAY up- like Burlington, the major city and college town...but where we are, they've gone up- but not doubled or trippled.

Brandy

My brother lives in that area and he mentioned that parents buying condos for their kids to use when they go to school (and as a future investment) have inflated the prices and made it very difficult for folks who actually live and work in the area to afford them. It's also attracting a lot of wealthy folks from the NYC area who buy spreads on the lake for retirement and/or vacation.

An interesting phenomenon happening here in Fairfield County is that we are pretty much running out of land to build. Now people are paying a high price for a house -- $600,000+ for a 1960-70 era raised ranch or colonial on a half acre or acre -- and KNOCKING IT DOWN and then rebuilding a new house. They are ending up paying well over a million dollars for a home in just a regular neighborhood. As mentioned above, Greenwich in particular is completely out of control. A small house can be up in the million dollar range and the large estates are in the double-digit millions.

 

[Elwood Blues]

I bought my house (Philly suburb (umm WAY out in the suburbs actually)) in late 1999. 2000sf on 3/4 acre lot for 196,000. It was appraised about two months ago for $275,000.


But I do know what the problem is.




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It's George Bush's fault. Must be since everything else is his fault.

 

[Margie J]

There was an interesting article in this weekend's Boston Globe about housing costs in MA. The average price of housing is now 6 times what it was in 1980 yet the salaries are only 3 times what they were then. In addition, there are some areas that have had a 150-200% increase in prices in the past four years -- that's right houses have increase by 150-200% from 1999 to 2003.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ma...llars_for_this/

It's really a great article.

I was thinking about that article when I first saw this thread. My reaction to the photos of the home with the outdated interior was , they are crazy! After you've spent the million dollars to buy the house (in the right neighborhood of course) how can you afford to renovate the inside.

I was lucky when I bought my condo in 1997. The owner wanted to get a quick sale because they were moving and I had a pre-approved mortgage ready to go. The same units selling today are around $100,000 MORE than my purchase price. I think it's totally nuts, especially with all the structural problems this building has. It's location that sells though.

 

[Tink&SquirtsMom]

An interesting phenomenon happening here in Fairfield County is that we are pretty much running out of land to build. Now people are paying a high price for a house -- $600,000+ for a 1960-70 era raised ranch or colonial on a half acre or acre -- and KNOCKING IT DOWN and then rebuilding a new house. They are ending up paying well over a million dollars for a home in just a regular neighborhood.

That also was happening where I used to be. It was quite odd because people would buy into a neighborhood because they loved the asethetic of it, then knock down the house, build up a new one with a completely different feel (especially since they were usually tearing down tiny homes and building huge ones right to the very edges of the lot) and what would happen is they would completely ruin/change the original asethetic that made them buy there in the first place. And you can imagine when the boom ended (markets still incredibly high there but not nearly as bad as it was before) those homes lost tremendous value.

 

[Tink&SquirtsMom]

It's George Bush's fault. Must be since everything else is his fault.

Really... you had to go there with this? Even as a joke... was it really necessary?

 

[Laura]

Wow. I'm glad I live where I do. DH and I are looking for our first house here in Columbus and while some suburbs are out of our price range, there are great houses to be found for less than $150K. For the prices some of you are mentioning, you can get a mansion! Tomorrow, we may put an offer on a 4BR, 2BA ranch with 1900+ square feet. Yay! The list price is under $130K. It's not in the boonies nor is it a crapshack.

So leave your expensive neighborhoods and move to Ohio! We'll take the workers who can't afford to live in Boston! (Hey, maybe we are!)

 

[Virgo10]

Originally posted by chrissyk
We just sold that house last Tuesday, LOL! Actually, it sold above your self-imposed limit The buyers were SO happy to get it too We sold FSBO, since there is just no point in having a realtor when people are begging to buy your crapshack for an insane price. Our house was a total crapshack when we bought it 6 1/2 years ago. We put like 20K into renovating it and sold it for 2 1/2 times what we paid for it We're now happily in our lovely, brand new house in FL MA people, get out while the getting is good!!

I'm trying! We bought this house in 1997. Since then prices in our neighborhood have increased nearly 70%. Our goal is to move to FL and buy a house out right.

BTW, I wanted to try FSBO but DH wasn't happy about it so we went with a realtor. I hate the idea of parting with 5% of the money we make but I just couldn't convince him.

Roberta

 

[LIDisneyFan]

Well, I just moved to Florida, and although it is a gorgeous community, I am paying for my nwe house a little more than I sold my house on Long Island, NY - which appreciated over 3 times what I paid for it in 1998.

many of the houses in this new neighborhood are over $1 million (not mine!)

Where ARE people getting the money?

 

[Elwood Blues]

Originally posted by Tink&SquirtsMom
Really... you had to go there with this? Even as a joke... was it really necessary?

Couldn't help myself.

 

[dianeschlicht]

Originally posted by Elwood Blues
Couldn't help myself.

LOL, Elwood, I was thinking of doing the same thing, but as I read through the thread I saw you did it for me! Truth hurts!

 

[Lisa F]

We were able to afford to get into a very expensive market by doing the following:

-We moved to a cheaper apartment and I took a year off of grad schol to work so that we could sock away $$ for a down payment.

-I sold my car and put the proceeds+insurance savings into the house account. Maybe about once a month I wish we still had two cars but for the most part we are making one car work (DH works from home, I am now back to finishing my thesis at home so most times we can get away with only one car).

-We only put down 5% and used some "creative" financing via a piggyback loan to avoid PMI. Would have liked to have 20% but even saving my entire salary couldn't keep pace with how much housing prices were rising.

-We started looking about a half hour or 45 minutes north of the area where we previously thought we would buy but were priced out of over the last few years.

-We expanded our price range so that we are paying more than we originally thought we'd be comfortable with and so far we're doing ok, it's just meant forgoing things like Disney vacations for a while. Yes, we're finally going on a cruise next year (and a nice one at that!) but that's because we had so many DVC points we hadn't used (bought into DVC back when we lived in TX in a house that we could easily afford) that I was able to rent them to pay for the trip. It could be worse but we are sure down from the 1-2 times a year we went to WDW before to a vacation once every 2-3 years.

With all of that we were able to just BARELY squeak into the market. Right after we bought, the next two houses sold for more than ours did for a lot less house, so we got very very lucky on timing as well.