When will real estate recover?

pocomom

Brr.....
Joined
Oct 20, 2012
Messages
1,169
DH just looked at Zillow for our house (in NE PA) to see what it estimates sale price. (liking his new job and I beleive he is starting to think about moving to TX) It is now down 150,000 from its high, and nearly 75K from when we bought it. Our house in Michigan which we can't sell, and are lucky to have a renter in it, is in an even worse situation. We lose about $500 a month on the mortgage there with the renter, and never could get an adjustment because we are current, and pay our bills. I know we are in 2 of the worse hit areas (by the way if you see us buying in your neighborhood, run!!! :)
And I don't imagine the Michigan house will ever recover fully, but when oh when will the real estate recovery star happening here?
How are things in your market?
 
DH just looked at Zillow for our house (in NE PA) to see what it estimates sale price. (liking his new job and I beleive he is starting to think about moving to TX) It is now down 150,000 from its high, and nearly 75K from when we bought it. Our house in Michigan which we can't sell, and are lucky to have a renter in it, is in an even worse situation. We lose about $500 a month on the mortgage there with the renter, and never could get an adjustment because we are current, and pay our bills. I know we are in 2 of the worse hit areas (by the way if you see us buying in your neighborhood, run!!! :)
And I don't imagine the Michigan house will ever recover fully, but when oh when will the real estate recovery star happening here?
How are things in your market?

Here in Denver there is little inventory and homes are getting multiple offers and driving prices up. I currently have my house in Kansas City for sale (moved to CO 4 1/2 years ago right as the bottom dropped out of the housing market) and inventory is low and I've had quite a bit of interest in my home (listed Saturday) but no offer yet. Definitely not as hot as Denver.

Jill in CO
 
DH just looked at Zillow for our house (in NE PA) to see what it estimates sale price. (liking his new job and I beleive he is starting to think about moving to TX) It is now down 150,000 from its high, and nearly 75K from when we bought it. Our house in Michigan which we can't sell, and are lucky to have a renter in it, is in an even worse situation. We lose about $500 a month on the mortgage there with the renter, and never could get an adjustment because we are current, and pay our bills. I know we are in 2 of the worse hit areas (by the way if you see us buying in your neighborhood, run!!! :)
And I don't imagine the Michigan house will ever recover fully, but when oh when will the real estate recovery star happening here?
How are things in your market?

We are in CT and our house value (at least according to Zillow) is higher than it ever was. We bought in 1998 for $172K, the lowest value it has shown on Zillow since the 'bust' was $220K and that was a couple of years ago, today Zillow says my house is valued at $255K. Honestly I'm not sure that any of the houses in this area are really worth what zillow says, so I take it with a huge grain of salt. No matter, I don't plan on buying or selling for a long time.
 
Our area was never hit as badly as some others, but it is definitely starting to change over from a buyer's market to a seller's. Homes are definitely selling more quickly and some are getting multiple offers soon after listing.

DH and I are lucky because our house is in a small section of town that has the elementary school, middle school and high school that everyone wants. Nothing in our neighborhood stays on the market long and our area still gets a better price for the same house than other areas due to the schools.

A small ranch style home (3 bedroom, 1 bath) in terrible condition across the street and two houses down from our house sold in less than a week for $150,000. We couldn't believe it! The woman who lived there was a hoarder. They took trailer loads of stuff out of there for weeks before it went on the market and we heard from someone who looked at it that it was a total gut and redo. It also needed new siding, windows, heating system and a roof. She had cats that had used the whole house as a litter box. It was listed for $154,900 and everyone in the neighborhood thought it would be a hard sell. I guess we were all wrong!
 

We are in CT and our house value (at least according to Zillow) is higher than it ever was. We bought in 1998 for $172K, the lowest value it has shown on Zillow since the 'bust' was $220K and that was a couple of years ago, today Zillow says my house is valued at $255K. Honestly I'm not sure that any of the houses in this area are really worth what zillow says, so I take it with a huge grain of salt. No matter, I don't plan on buying or selling for a long time.
SEPA here, and it's pretty much the same as scrapquilter's situation.

We never experienced the hard hit that other areas got. Yes, our home value declined after the bubble burst and it has not returned to the level that Zillow had it at in 2007. But we are not in a situation where we need to sell, nor is there a mortgage on the property, so we are not "underwater".

My brother just walked away from his home in NEPA. In his case, buying at the height of real estate prices, coupled with a divorce, declining market value and unstable employment created the perfect storm. I guess that's the tale that a lot of people can tell.

There's not much that I can offer the OP in the way of advice. If you cannot wait out the market, you're going to take a loss when you sell right now. I don't know anyone who bought during the real estate boom who has seen the value of the home reach the level that it was when they made their purchase.
 
It's gonna be a while....the rise in home prices from 2002-2007 was very unusual....prices increased much faster than they had in the previous 20 years.
CoreLogicDec2012.jpg


Now all real estate is local, and prices are back to where they were before the Great Recession, in many places, but if your area is still having high unemployment, low job growth, or still has a glut of homes built during the housing boom, then it could be a lifetime before the prices get back to where they were.
 
What area of Michigan your house is in makes a difference. I'm in Michigan and my area went off a cliff in late 2004 (a couple months after I bought my house it was suddenly worth about half of what I had just paid!)
A couple years ago I was worth about 60% of my purchase price, right now I think I'm somewhere around 80%. We are finally starting to sell our of foreclosures if you don't count the ones that need to be demolished. Unfortunately, one of those is right next door to me. :sad: They were mad when they left and broke the glass in their doors so who knows what sort of critters are living in there now, it has terrible damage from water and is not repairable at all.

I don't know if we will ever get what we paid, so I just try to think of it this way- by the time you account for interest I am paying right about what I would for rent somewhere but I have the freedom to do whatever the heck I want to with the yard and house.
 
I would not use Zillow to gauge anything. They had almost all the information on our last house wrong. I haven't even looked at it for our current house. A real estate appraiser or a good realtor are the best judge on home prices if you really want to know.
 
Here in Denver there is little inventory and homes are getting multiple offers and driving prices up. I currently have my house in Kansas City for sale (moved to CO 4 1/2 years ago right as the bottom dropped out of the housing market) and inventory is low and I've had quite a bit of interest in my home (listed Saturday) but no offer yet. Definitely not as hot as Denver.

Jill in CO

We are in the Denver area too and currently living in a hotel b/c the real estate market is so hot here and we cannot find a house. I have heard of homes getting 27 offers within 24 hours and going for 50k over asking price.

I know this may not be the norm for the entire country but it certainly is an indication that things are improving! There are several markets around the country experiencing this type of boom.
 
My brother just walked away from his home in NEPA. In his case, buying at the height of real estate prices, coupled with a divorce, declining market value and unstable employment created the perfect storm. I guess that's the tale that a lot of people can tell.

There's not much that I can offer the OP in the way of advice. If you cannot wait out the market, you're going to take a loss when you sell right now. I don't know anyone who bought during the real estate boom who has seen the value of the home reach the level that it was when they made their purchase.


We actually bought this after the bust so to speak but NEPA is still spiralling downward... all those city commuters and vaction homeowners went back to NJ and NY.
And Michigan was purchased many years ago by dh's first wife, who passed away. Beautiful house river front house that used to be old parkland. In other states the land alone would be millions but in Michigan it is worth nothing! Had it on the market and literally NO ONE ever came to look!
We'll wait it out for sure , no other choice except to rent! Just would love to see things edging forward or at least reaching bottom soon here!
 
I would not use Zillow to gauge anything. They had almost all the information on our last house wrong. I haven't even looked at it for our current house. A real estate appraiser or a good realtor are the best judge on home prices if you really want to know.

We did acutally have an appraisal last year and zillow was within a few thousand. So for us pretty accurate.
 
I would not use Zillow to gauge anything. They had almost all the information on our last house wrong. I haven't even looked at it for our current house. A real estate appraiser or a good realtor are the best judge on home prices if you really want to know.

I would agree with this too. Zillow is really inaccurate and our real estate agent (we just sold less than 3 weeks ago) said real estate agents do not use Zillow at all.

You want to look at what similar homes in your area have sold for in the last 6 months. Zillow had our value at 315k but no homes like ours had ever sold that high. Average homes like ours were selling for 275k. So, Zillow had our value way over. I've seen the opposite in other homes where they are 50-75k undervalue.
 
I am in Eastern PA and I bought 2 years ago at a pretty good price. My home value is not rising at all according to zillow, which I don't put much stock in. I am hoping to refi soon to get rid of FHA MI, I think I am too close to chance it right now, even though I have improved my house cosmetically quite a bit (I did buy the ugly duckilng on my street). I am in a good school district, and houses do sell here.

My brother is house hunting, he sold his house quickly and is in an apartment right now because things are selling so quickly...and he and his wife are VERY picky.

We didn't have huge gains, so we didn't see a big cliff in my area.
 
OP-Re the house in Michigan. Did you look into a HARP loan modification. The idea is to get people current on their houses, even underwater to the best interest rate possible. I know Dave Ramsey (I listen to the radio show) has talked about it a few times and encouraged people to contact Churchill mortgage. Not an endorsement, I'm not even a huge Ramsey fan-sometimes he amuses me and it is on while I am in the car.

As to the real estate market in our area. The Western suburbs of IL are pretty hot. Not as hot as CO, but we have been in multiple bid situations and offered cash over asking price and still did not get homes. We are actively looking to find a new place.

Good luck
 
The area I live in is having issues. Sandy knocked my town for a loop (but not my neighborhood).
I did look up my house on Zillow and we had an appraisal last year,
and Zillow is about $10,000 over that. :confused3
 
I would not use Zillow to gauge anything. They had almost all the information on our last house wrong. I haven't even looked at it for our current house. A real estate appraiser or a good realtor are the best judge on home prices if you really want to know.

:thumbsup2:thumbsup2:thumbsup2
 
I have a townhouse in the western Chicago suburbs that I built in 2005. It is still $50K underwater. I have renters in it for now, but the minute I have enough to make up the difference and sell it, it is out of here.

Now the home we live in, 20 miles further west, has bounced back some. We got a good deal on it 2 years ago so we now have equity in it, but it is still worth $100K less than what the people paid for it who built it in 2005.
 
Hopefully it will recover nationwide soon. Here locally, my house value has actually increased about 15K, Shocking I know. I hope it keeps up for about 11 more years when I can move with full retirement benefits.
 
Our area was never affected and the prices have kept rising. I've read that some economists are expecting interest rates to begin rising and w/in the next couple of years to go up a lot. We're helping our kids to buy homes now so they can take advantage of the record low rates.
 
I would not use Zillow to gauge anything. They had almost all the information on our last house wrong. I haven't even looked at it for our current house. A real estate appraiser or a good realtor are the best judge on home prices if you really want to know.

I agree with this. It can be WAY off.
 







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