Are any of you living where real estate costs are not crazy? Every night Vince and I look at real estate listings here, in Brownwood, where Chad lives and it’s entertaining . . though kinda sad. I guess sad because I feel so bad for people who are just starting out wanting to buy a first home. I think of young folks who have been renting and thinking about buying. They probably can’t even think about buying now. We are so lucky because we bought this house just when things were getting a bit weird – houses were starting to sell as soon as they hit the market, but before the prices when crazy. Chad keeps saying “sell this house . . you could make a lot of $$” but then I remind him that we’d have to pay some crazy amount to buy another one or, I guess we could move in with him. 🙂
Vince wants to build a shop and because of the building costs, it would be outrageous. He keeps thinking he can find a piece of land with a small house and a nice shop but he doesn’t factor in the craziness going on right now.
Friday we were in town and the realtor we’ve been talking with called and said a place had just been listed not far from our house . . listed less than an hour earlier. It had a bit of acreage, a small house and a small shop. She said “You could rent the house, put another $20K into the shop and have what you want.” We were headed home so we drove past it. There was already someone there looking at it. It sat very close to a highway, the shop was too close to the house – Vince wouldn’t feel comfortable being there working if the house was rented to someone and, we are not the landlord type. It was more like a detached garage (and the only garage). By the time we got home and before I called her to tell her we weren’t interested in that one, she texted me and said it had a contract . . not even two hours after it was listed.
Friday night Vince found a house for sale by owner. It was about 1,400 square feet, not far from our house at all and it had a two car garage as well as a little storage building in the back. Vince could use the garage for his shop and we could clean out the three storage buildings and store the stuff in the house for now. We drove over on Saturday morning just to drive by it. It was one of those neighborhoods where cars are parked on the street, kids are playing and chasing balls into the street so you don’t see the kids til they’re right in front of your car, and the houses are almost right on top of each other. We decided that wouldn’t work for us. There was something I saw when we passed the house and I wanted to see if it was the same in the pictures so Saturday night I went to look at the pictures online and the price had increased by 20% and on Sunday morning there was a contract. So, the went up for sale Friday morning, Saturday the price increased and Sunday it had a contract.
It’s great for sellers . . not so great for buyers. It’s not a big deal for us because we probably don’t need to buy anything anyway.
When I was getting insurance for this house when we were buying it, our agent was telling me his figures showed we should insure it for $XX. He said the cost to rebuild this house was more than we were paying. I told him . . why would I pay more for that much insurance when, if the worst happened, we would go buy another house somewhere and not even rebuild this one? Now . . what I said is crazy. We might ought to reconsider upping the insurance but we won’t. I think insurance is a bit of a gimmick. It seems to go up every year and we never have claims. In Texas, we considered not even having it because the fire insurance was so high but that was because the risk was so high. I would have been so worried all the time if we hadn’t had insurance but this whole housing cost and building materials cost is truly wild.
MICHELE LEIHY says
I’m north of Denver..houses I wouldn’t pay $250,000 for are going for $500,000… they are selling fast for over list price..
DH and I would like to move, but everything is way over our price range- even the senior living developments are too expensive…
Sibyl Scott says
Judy you are oh so very right. Houses in my very modest neighborhood that were usually going for under 100K and now going for nearly 200k, and some even greater. I am not talking about fancy houses either, No acreage or such. Just older homes 50-60 years of age, single story,all around 1500 square foot homes. Only advantage is most are not super close to each other. I had no idea they were going for so much, til a neighbor that keeps up on all of this was telling me. We only 2 houses for sale in our neighborhood, and both are over 200k. Yes it sounds like a time for me to sell–but where would I go and get what I have for that amount of money? No where. So we stay put. Ok I looked our neighborhood has 201 homes, I just looked at Zillow and of the 2 houses that are for sale 1 is now pending after 6 days. WOW. But most of the houses here are under 1000 square foot. Just can not imagine trying to move into one of these for the prices they are asking.
Susan says
I live about 100 miles north of New York City in a very rural area. The people from the city,where apts cost half a million,are buying homes up here. It started with 9/11 and has surged with the pandemic.Homes have more than doubled in price. It’s very hard for local young couples to purchase homes, the salaries in this area cannot support the mortgages. There is a small house a mile from me with 2 bedroom, 1 bath that’s listed for $559,000. It looks like a shack on the outside! It is not uncommon to see homes selling fir $1 million and more!
Judy Laquidara says
There does seem to be some insanity with what people fleeing cities are willing to pay, which I do understand right now but I’ve seen it happen – so many of those people, while they feel safer in the communities outside the city, they’re going to end up complaining about lack of amenities; they’ll have to go back to the city for all the things they can’t live without; they’ll want the community government to start providing more. Of course, I have no idea how it is where you live but I’d often talk to people who thought they wanted the life Vince and I lived in Texas and most had no idea how hard it was to live out like that – no trash pickup, no decent internet til near the end when we got our own tower, not much fire protection, miles to a grocery store.
It will be interesting and probably a bit scary to see where this all ends.
Elle says
The market is insane! Houses are generally sold in 4 hours after a bidding war. We’re in a half million dollar house and it’s worth maybe $200k. We are valued at 5X what we paid for it 30y ago. It’s just plain wrong. I’m with you, having no idea how a young couple will ever buy a home. Sad Sad Sad.
Judy Laquidara says
What this probably means for all of us is that our property tax appraisals are going to skyrocket and our property taxes will all go up.
Heidi Van Vliet says
I live in a more rural area 45 minutes outside a major city, the current rate for a 1.78 acre lot no septic no well, no house is listed at $899k Canadian and yes people are buying them. People aren’t asking for inspections on houses any more and some are going for $200k over asking. Realtors are telling people to not sell their house until they’ve bought a new one or they might get priced out of the market because prices are rising so fast.
Judy Laquidara says
That’s exactly what I’m thinking. I have heard of several people who knew housing prices had gone way up, put their homes up for sale before finding a new home and they’ve had a hard hit of reality not being able to buy anything comparable to what they had.
Marsha says
Crazy in Indiana urban area. 100,000-200000 over list price. I had to buy new home insurance. With the price of lumber had to go with total replacement what happens when young couple loses their job.
Carolyn Sullivan says
Houses are generally lower in Cincinnati than in other larger cities… but even here they are going crazy. if you sell and make money on it, the only thing you could do is move in w someone or an apartment, then wait for the housing crash that is sure to come.
Nancy H. says
My husband and I moved 4 years ago and recently we got a notice from someone wanting to buy our home at 175K more than we paid. We have no intentions of moving again anytime soon but it just boggles my mind that the value could go up that much. I read an article in Fortune that says lumber prices have risen 171% in the last year because of the pandemic adding almost 40K to the price of a new build. If you go to the home improvement centers to find any lumber there are a lot of shortages.
Donna Williams says
Here in Northwest Arkansas, it’s a cash bidding war situation. Our modest home is now valued at double what we paid 5.5 years ago. It’s not for sale, but that doesn’t stop people pulling to the curb offering cash for it. There’s been cases reported of a house listed for $500k, cash bidders end up paying $750k to $1m. You can’t drive though town without seeing hundreds of houses going up or remodeling. Crazy.
Liz says
Since the home market is crazy, has Vince thought of looking at commercial market in the area? There might be a small property that could be purchased or leased. Vince could set the shop part very fast, have storage space to get the stuff out of the 3 units.
Judy Laquidara says
No. We want something within a few miles of the house and this is all residential or farmland. Commercial prices are outrageous too. The cost of renting the three storage units is about as low as we can get til we find a more permanent spot for the stuff – either a shop here or another piece of property we can by.
Even if we bought a little house with an acre or so that isn’t restricted, we could build a less expensive shop than what we have to bild at our house.
Linda Garcia says
Well I hope this does not turn into another housing market crash where people can’t afford the mortgages, prices drop and people are upside down in a mortgage that they can’t afford and can’t sell the house for what they paid for it. Not a good time to buy!
Judy Laquidara says
I hope not too but unless prices stay inflated for the long term, I can see it happening.
Cindy F says
The prices here in Utah are going crazy too. People kept thinking it was all the Californians moving here and buying homes but the reality was first time buyers and others looking to move up. Last year we had our deck redone and our contractor was talking about how prices had increased. Can’t even imagine how much more now. My husband was also going to put a new roof on our shed last summer but balked at the cost of waferboard and now he’s regretting it because it’s gone up even more since then! There’s talk of prices coming down in the fall but who knows?!
Susan Nixon says
To refinance my house, I had to get an appraisal. I was floored! Here I was worrying that the house would appraise for me to get the amount I wanted, and it was $45,000 more than that, and it isn’t in perfect condition! Then I went to get lumber to replace the ruined deck. $1500, and the deck is only half as big as it was!
Judy Laquidara says
We talked about replacing at least part of our deck and we ran into the same thing and that was in about October. I can only imagine what it would cost now. At least you got what you needed. We’re still sitting here watching the prices going up.
Rebecca says
I saw an article today talking about the inflating house prices. The article thought it wasn’t going to be a bubble like before; the financing is more rigorous.
I just keep being SO gld that we bought just over a year ago; got moved before the pandemic closed everything down, and, of course, avoided this boom and all the hassle! According to Zillow, our home value has increased 17-18% in 14 months.
Judy Laquidara says
Don’t believe everything you read. They’re advertising 100% financing here. When we were talking with the realtor and saying we feel bad about first time home buyers, mostly young people, struggling, our realtor said something like . . I feel bad for those who are biting off more than they can handle because they are making loans to people who are going to struggle with making the payments.
Linda in NE says
Housing sales are crazy. Our DIL just sold her house in a smaller size town. It wasn’t on the market for even 2 whole days. She’s moving to one of the cities in our state where I think she will find that she can’t find a house that’s even half of what she had for the same price. Not my worry I guess. Our daughter lives in the same town as DIL and works in a nearby town of around 25,000. She says there are only 20 houses for sale in that whole town. Even here in our dinky little town of less than 400 house don’t even make it on the market. They are sold by word-of-mouth before ever being advertised.