When will real estate recover?

[chimilady]

Don't know exactly where you are in NEPA, but I have family there and one of the things they are hit by is the result of fracking and the declining quality of the water. If that's you, you're never going to recover from bad drinking water. Ever.

 

[tvguy]

Some would argue that the market will never support that prices that were hit during the peak. Houses just weren't worth that.

Mine is up $200,000 from what I paid, and down $200,000 from the peak.

 

[GrnMtnMan]

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[MagicallyDelicious]

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.

Zillow is a joke.

 

[natfrac]

We're in Oregon and have a house underwater. We had to move about 100 miles away, so we're renting it out until things improve. It's slowly getting better, but it will be quite awhile before we gain back the 50K that we're under. We also lose money every month, as the rent doesn't cover the mortgage. But I was able to refinance, even being underwater, and lower the interest.

 

[tvguy]

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.

You think that is a big or small difference? Given that Zillow uses mathamatical formulas that don't take into account condition and other factors, I would consider their estimates generally amazingly close.
My family has a house that will be up for sale in the future, and I have found the appraisals to be out of touch with real selling prices. A house in the neighborhood appraised for $700,000, zillow had it at $800,000. The owner listed it for $999,950 and sold it for $899,950.

 

[Ephany]

Zillow has the empty, destroyed, foreclosed home next door valued higher than our house. Granted, we do need to pressure wash, but really? I'm a bit skeptical on how accurate their prices really are. However, there are fewer homes foreclosed or for sale in our community compared to 6 months ago and definitely compared to a year ago. I think things are getting better, but very slowly.

 

[tvguy]

Zillow has the empty, destroyed, foreclosed home next door valued higher than our house. Granted, we do need to pressure wash, but really? I'm a bit skeptical on how accurate their prices really are. However, there are fewer homes foreclosed or for sale in our community compared to 6 months ago and definitely compared to a year ago. I think things are getting better, but very slowly.

In the example I listed, the house was built in 1939 and will be bulldozed. Not due to the age, but these homes are all on a half acre and about 2,000-2,500 square feet. People buy them to built 5,000 to 6,000 square foot homes on the lot.

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

Had dinner with a realtor friend a few weeks ago and she said that the demand for houses is up and they have very little in the inventory. My DH works at a bank and he sits next to the mtg loan dept and they are always looking for folks to work the weekend to process loans. My nephews house in Dallas sold in 10 days. They were not expecting that since they are building a new house that won't be ready till July so they had to find temporary housing. So it looks like things are picking up.

 

[Colleen27]

I'm in Michigan, so you know how it is here. Our area didn't see much "bubble" but we saw a big crash. Our 4bed/2bath house sold for 157K in '05; we paid 25K in '09 and it hasn't appreciated significantly since then. We had talked about a HELOC to do some home improvement but our bank has a 25K minimum loan amount and right now our appraisal isn't likely to come in at the 38K or so it would take to meet LTV guidelines on that amount so we're just cash-flowing projects as we can.

I don't think I'll live long enough to see this area get back to what it was pre-recession. We lost a ton of jobs but haven't gained any back, and there's still a glut of foreclosures on the market with more coming. Some banks aren't even initiating foreclosure proceedings in my town because they'd rather take a chance on owners refinancing or otherwise getting current than taking the outright loss and tax burden of taking possession now. But we're fortunate to be in a position of not having to worry about it; we paid cash and don't intend to sell (ever - my son is going into a trade that is still strong in this area and we hope to give him the house when we're ready to retire south) so other than the inconvenience of not being able to take out that home equity line the low value doesn't affect us at all.

 

[disneypharm]

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

I agree. We are in the suburb of Denver and it is definitely getting better. A neighbor's house got 3 offers the weekend it went on the market and the offer that was higher than the asking price got the house. It is 200K higher than what we paid 12 years ago but about 30K less than the peak. Zillow is definitely not accurate.

 

[Colleen27]

You think that is a big or small difference? Given that Zillow uses mathamatical formulas that don't take into account condition and other factors, I would consider their estimates generally amazingly close.
My family has a house that will be up for sale in the future, and I have found the appraisals to be out of touch with real selling prices. A house in the neighborhood appraised for $700,000, zillow had it at $800,000. The owner listed it for $999,950 and sold it for $899,950.

It depends on location, I think. Zillow here is stupid-wrong. They have my home as worth 82K and there's no way it would appraise at even half that. They also have the value of the house next door, which just sold for 22K, listed as 60K.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

It depends on location, I think. Zillow here is stupid-wrong. They have my home as worth 82K and there's no way it would appraise at even half that. They also have the value of the house next door, which just sold for 22K, listed as 60K.

Wow, that's amazing pricing for homes! Most cars around our area are $60k. Not mine of course!

 

[usd2bmd]

We never really saw the dramatic increase in real estate values and luckily never saw them fall off the cliff either. Our house has steadily increased in value in the 20 years we have owned it. As long as it continues to steadily gain value I will be happy...you know what they say, "slow and steady wins the race!"

 

[MinnieFan4ever]

I agree. We are in the suburb of Denver and it is definitely getting better. A neighbor's house got 3 offers the weekend it went on the market and the offer that was higher than the asking price got the house. It is 200K higher than what we paid 12 years ago but about 30K less than the peak. Zillow is definitely not accurate.

Yikes! We are moving to the Denver area soon.

 

[wendow]

Yikes! We are moving to the Denver area soon.

You might want to plan on renting for a bit. The market here is CRAZY and not in a good way for buyers.

 

[disneypharm]

Yikes! We are moving to the Denver area soon.

I wouldn't worry too much. Do your research online before moving. There are still some good areas with reasonable prices.

 

[angwill]

NW IL here and the market sucks. Our home is worth about what we paid for it 18 years ago. We have had it on the market for 2 years with no luck in selling it. The forclosures that are super cheap are selling to one local property management/realty company. The rest of us regular sellers are just sitting and waiting for buyers. I watched one house start at $300,000 and 3 years later sell for $125,000 and one that sold in one month for just under asking price so who knows. The news keeps saying sales are up in our area and realty is doing great but I certainly don't see that happening around me. I see a lot of forclosures being bought up and bringing down the price of regular properties though.

I guess it doesn't help that we have a very high unemployment rate either. There are very few jobs and a lot of people fighting for them.

 

[tvguy]

It depends on location, I think. Zillow here is stupid-wrong. They have my home as worth 82K and there's no way it would appraise at even half that. They also have the value of the house next door, which just sold for 22K, listed as 60K.

I can see that. But that has been my experience with appraisals too. Way off what houses actually are selling for. We sold my MIL's house in Probate, so had to get an appraisal. We actually sold the house before we got the appraisal. Listed for $110,000, sold for $105,000, which at the time was the highest selling price for that floor plan. Appraisal came in at $135,000. Both our Real Estate Agent, and the buyers Real Estate Agent could not figure where THAT number came from.

 

[Colleen27]

Wow, that's amazing pricing for homes! Most cars around our area are $60k. Not mine of course!

It is, and it has enabled us to do wonderful things. We took a gamble, burning through so much of our savings to buy this place, but not having a mortgage has been really liberating. We wouldn't have been able to consider private school for our girls or take as many vacations as we have... Heck, there have been times where it would have been a stretch just to keep up college & retirement contributions if we were still paying a mortgage every month.