Real Estate (Home) Values

SCCutler

SCCutler

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 27, 2005
Messages
17,409
Location
Fredericksburg, Texas (T82) and Dallas (ADS)
Display Name
Spike Cutler
Home Airfield
T82
So, my wife and I have sort of planned that, when Tommy went off to college, we would sell our house and buy something a little smaller. Looks like we should have done that about six months ago; there is nothing for sale, at all!

After several years of houses languishing on the market for many months, suddenly, these properties are changing hands in hours

Our next door neighbors put their house on the market a couple of weeks ago (complete surprise to us), with an open house on the same day the house was listed. I looked it up at the broker's website, and thought the price a bit of a stretch.

Guess I was wrong; they had six contracts offered on the first day, all of which were at or above the asking price. There is now, apparently, a bidding war underway.

It would seem a good time to sell our house (and perhaps it is), but we have become accustomed to sleeping indoors, so for now, we're doing some fix ups and upgrades and hanging in there.

I know that Texas, and Dallas in particular, has been said to be doing better economically than some other parts of the country, but wonder: are you all seen the same thing happening where you live?
 
SCCutler said:
So, my wife and I have sort of planned that, when Tommy went off to college, we would sell our house and buy something a little smaller. Looks like we should have done that about six months ago; there is nothing for sale, at all!

After several years of houses languishing on the market for many months, suddenly, these properties are changing hands in hours

Our next door neighbors put their house on the market a couple of weeks ago (complete surprise to us), with an open house on the same day the house was listed. I looked it up at the broker's website, and thought the price a bit of a stretch.

Guess I was wrong; they had six contracts offered on the first day, all of which were at or above the asking price. There is now, apparently, a bidding war underway.

It would seem a good time to sell our house (and perhaps it is), but we have become accustomed to sleeping indoors, so for now, we're doing some fix ups and upgrades and hanging in there.

I know that Texas, and Dallas in particular, has been said to be doing better economically than some other parts of the country, but wonder: are you all seen the same thing happening where you live?
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That's how it is in my neck of the woods. We are closing on a house in a few weeks. It was on the market for a week, and had 3 days of showings. We went in at asking price, and beat out 5 other offers. My buddy didn't even put his on the market to sell it. He was house shopping, and his realtor said that another realtor in his office showed pictures of his house to a client. The client wanted to make an offer, so he did. 5 people in my office all bought houses this month within a 5 mile radius of each other.
 
Hot market here in DC, too.

House next to me sold in 3 days. There was one nearby that sold as a tear-down & the "new" house was sold prior to the contractor closing on the old one.

What agents are doing here is to put house on market, then tell prospective bidders that offers will all be opened 3 days hence. It encourages folks to bid-up & maximizes value from property. That said, a friend of mine has been looking for 5 months - 6 house have been sold out either before she bids or at a much higher price than she is willing to bid. I admire her discipline.
 
Come to think of it, this reminds me of when I moved to Southern California in 1986; there were no houses for sale, only houses that were sold.

We managed to buy our house because we saw it the same day the sellers signed the listing agreement with the broker; they had an unplanned open house, and we got under contract that afternoon (the sellers, who were good people of character, refused to entertain higher offers after the contract was signed). I rather suspect we could not have pulled that off, had there been an Internet for house shopping at the time.

Three years later, when we went to sell, we had over 100 lookers before the first offer, and had to play them like a big fish on a small line to get the deal to close. I wonder: are we headed for another one of those?
 
In central Florida, it will take years, if not a decade for home values to return to a place where it is intelligent to sell. The number of people undersweater is enormous, along with those who are in default but the banks won't/can't foreclose. Some folks haven't made a home mortgage payment in several years but nothing happened.
 
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That's always the issue when you sell, getting into the next place. When you buy, getting outta the old place (g). I advised my Daughter to purchase their next home about a year ago. She was too worried about selling her old home for a loss. I advised she would make up the loss on the lower entry price for her next purchase, but she's still in the old place.

Best,

Dave
 
In Atlanta houses are moving pretty quickly as well, no where near the prices of 2006, but moving quickly and prices are rising.:yes: The real estate and car markets are usually reflections of each other and I will be out of several models before the summer is over. :dunno: it's a good problem to have, much better than too many cars and not enough buyers! :mad2:
 
You're welcome to the travel trailer until we leave for Colorado.:D

SCCutler said:
So, my wife and I have sort of planned that, when Tommy went off to college, we would sell our house and buy something a little smaller. Looks like we should have done that about six months ago; there is nothing for sale, at all!

After several years of houses languishing on the market for many months, suddenly, these properties are changing hands in hours

Our next door neighbors put their house on the market a couple of weeks ago (complete surprise to us), with an open house on the same day the house was listed. I looked it up at the broker's website, and thought the price a bit of a stretch.

Guess I was wrong; they had six contracts offered on the first day, all of which were at or above the asking price. There is now, apparently, a bidding war underway.

It would seem a good time to sell our house (and perhaps it is), but we have become accustomed to sleeping indoors, so for now, we're doing some fix ups and upgrades and hanging in there.

I know that Texas, and Dallas in particular, has been said to be doing better economically than some other parts of the country, but wonder: are you all seen the same thing happening where you live?
Click to expand...
 
We had a house in San Diego that had been rented for several years due to a flat market. The tenant's lease had expired and they were month to month. My wife decided to check out the possibility of selling it. Her cell phone was ringing off the hook with agents wanting to list it. When listed it went in 3 days. That was 4 months ago.

Paul
Salome, AZ
 
Spike, sell now while the iron is hot; rent an apartment while you look for the perfect next place. Love the "sealed bids opened 3 days hence" idea.
 
N747JB said:
In Atlanta houses are moving pretty quickly as well, no where near the prices of 2006, but moving quickly and prices are rising.:yes: The real estate and car markets are usually reflections of each other and I will be out of several models before the summer is over. :dunno: it's a good problem to have, much better than too many cars and not enough buyers! :mad2:
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Yup. I'm on the south side of ATL and the housing market is pretty bare right now if you're looking to buy. Last summer, we actually put an offer in on the house we're in now after he had been on the market for 8 hours. We still got a good deal on it, but man was that a quick turn. From "Surrrrrrre, honey, we'll look at houses (it will take months to get everything straightened out anyway)" to "Holy crap, we're moving in two weeks!?"

The development that my parents live in up around Buford/Braselton is building like crazy right now. There have been 5 houses started, finished, and sold within the past 6 months.
 
Living in a small space for a month or two provides an interesting perspective. Everything seems to be getting smaller and more portable (including trousers) with flat screens, laptops and tablets, and I'm always surprised how easily we adjust to living in ~170 sq. ft.

SCCutler said:
Very kind, but I believe I'll stay married while longer...
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+1 on central Florida. My ex-wife and her BF haven't made a payment to the bank for 3 years and it looks like they may finally be forced out by the end of the year. My neighborhood has many foreclosures that aren't even on the market.


Florida Cracker said:
In central Florida, it will take years, if not a decade for home values to return to a place where it is intelligent to sell. The number of people under is enormous, along with those who are in default but the banks won't/can't foreclose. Some folks haven't made a home mortgage payment in several years but nothing happened.
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I bought a little shack up in CO in Nov 2011, and another little shack in San Diego in Jan of 2012. I think I was lucky as it looks like it picked the bottom of the market pretty close.

I'm west of the metro area and sales and prices were never depressed out here, but things have picked up nicely in the past 6 mo.

http://www.zillow.com/local-info/TX-Carrollton-home-value/r_17321/

http://www.zillow.com/local-info/CO-Colorado-Springs-home-value/r_4172/

http://www.zillow.com/local-info/CA-Escondido-home-value/r_11337/
 
Here in Philly suburbs the market is also hot, like you described. Low interest rates seem to give people an excuse to pay more... We have homes that sat on market for 6-8 months, no bids and when the spring market hit, multiple buyers fighting over it.
 
Spike, you're not imagining things. The number of homes for sale in Addison has steadily dropped, but the prices have climbed as has the number of home sold.

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Source: http://www.redfin.com/city/312/TX/Addison
 

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It is the same here in Austin. I'm a Real Estate Broker and that is a major concern of people looking to sell is where are we going to go. You have several things driving demand in Texas, favorable business environment, no state income tax, and a varied diverse economy with all sectors doing well (manufacturing, Oil and gas, high tech).

New housing construction is lagging way behind demand and with gas prices where they are, the suburbs are not as attractive as they used to be. Also, the dirty little secret that no one wants to talk about is that lending standards are starting to loosen up again. There is also a little bit of the "I've got to do it now or it wont be there later" mentality.

Also another factor is that residential real estate prices tend not to be based on economic principals, but on emotional values and what the last person paid for a house in the area. This is a factor in that if that last person was moving in from say, California, what might be over priced to someone locally seemed like a steal to the new person, thus driving up prices. I'm sure someone has done it but it would be interesting to map home prices compared to migration.
 
Not a lot of improvement here. Michigan is still feeding from the hind one.
OTOH, lakefront property is commanding a premium.
 
The north side of Atlanta is booming compared to the rest of the area, no one has really started building in the west side yet, but lots are doubling and tripling in price. So, somebody knows something, or at least hey think they know something. :D I'm glad to see some uptick in real estate, it may be out of fear that the deals are getting gone or rates are going up, but it's still movement! :D


CJones said:
Yup. I'm on the south side of ATL and the housing market is pretty bare right now if you're looking to buy. Last summer, we actually put an offer in on the house we're in now after he had been on the market for 8 hours. We still got a good deal on it, but man was that a quick turn. From "Surrrrrrre, honey, we'll look at houses (it will take months to get everything straightened out anyway)" to "Holy crap, we're moving in two weeks!?"

The development that my parents live in up around Buford/Braselton is building like crazy right now. There have been 5 houses started, finished, and sold within the past 6 months.
Click to expand...
 
SCCutler said:
So, my wife and I have sort of planned that, when Tommy went off to college, we would sell our house and buy something a little smaller. Looks like we should have done that about six months ago; there is nothing for sale, at all!
Click to expand...

Our across the street neighbors in the old 'hood posted their house $35K above comps in the neighborhood and had an contract signed for asking price that afternoon.

We had one couple come look at our place without even listing it, who badly want to flip it, which would have been nice for us, but they couldn't keep up with the current prices. They offered almost $95K less than the house across the street's contract.

Obviously, not serious.

So the contractors hit our place in earnest starting next week... The real question for us is... How much to put into it...?

We're replacing a tub and backsplash where we had a hole in the wall (planned full remodel after a valve started leaking, so we went through the tile to remove the valve... then life changed and we moved out...), having some 12+ year old wallpaper removed and walls retextured, and painting the entire interior in the usual boring natural off-white/tans whatever, and refinishing wood floors.

Questionable stuff:

Sprinkler system? Probably not. Someone else can do it. Does mean I have to stop by and water though. Crud.

Back porch repairs: Probably not. It's all brickwork and areas are badly uneven. To re-do it, I'd just rip the whole thing out and pour concrete.

Bent gutter/beam under back porch awning from overload of snow: again, probably not. I'd take it down and do something else. Already had one collapse in March '03 blizzard. Put it back up stronger, and it's bent again. Time to stop that insanity.

Definite no: Full bath and kitchen remodels... No, you do it however you like it.

I'd still dump it to a flipper if the right one came along at the right price...
 
SCCutler said:
Yes, there is.

Question is, why would I care?

(Not that there's anything wrong with Plano or McKinney, except I don't work near either place).

Have considered Addison, a little bit... proximity to the airplane cannot be bad, can it?
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At the risk of blowing my own horn, I'll give some cliche advise.

Go west young* man.

*young is relative. :D
 
SCCutler said:
Same objection.

If I were to move from easy driving distance of the office, I'd be moving to Fredericksburg. That would involve retirement, for which I am wholly unprepared.
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Surely Fredericksburg could use a highly qualified, gentleman lawyer. Might pay a little less, but the quality of life would be oh, so much better. :yes:

That is, as long as the folks in F'burg would view you as the gentleman you are as opposed to some high-falutin' fast-talking big-city lawyer.... :D
 
jonnyjetprop said:
+1 on central Florida. My ex-wife and her BF haven't made a payment to the bank for 3 years and it looks like they may finally be forced out by the end of the year. My neighborhood has many foreclosures that aren't even on the market.
Click to expand...

The number of "distress" sales has hammered the average sales price here. The number of houses simply sitting while the bank tries to figure out how to foreclose and get some place near whole is staggering.
 
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In Central Oregon, (Bend, Sunriver, Redmond) the market is showing signs of life after taking a huge dive in the crash. Of course at one time Bend was listed as one of the most overpriced markets in the nation. The region had a huge population surge in the late 90s when we bought our property. Prices tripled in the early 2ks. The weather and recreational availability make it a great retire.......mmmmm. No, wait. This place sucks, lousy weather and crappy golf. Don't move here....stay away!!! :nono:
 
Denver area is hot, at least the southeast suburbs. So is the Bay Area. I spoke to someone today who was handling an estate sale. They had nine offers in a day, all above asking price. This on a small fixer-upper.
 
The trouble now is many folks are afraid to list their homes. The contract gets signed, the house closes and "where're you gonna live?"

Of course the moment the Fed stop buying debt, the boomlet will end....
 
Here in central Iowa houses are selling fast. We got new neighbors in the house across the street and they said that they had two houses that they looked at sold out from under them before they could even make an offer. Last summer I sold a house, and an acreage. The house was way over priced and on the market for six months. As soon as we lowered the price it sold in a week. The acreage sold in two weeks.

We have just the opposite situation from you. Our house was small, but we got by. We looked at houses over the years but we either didn't want to spend the money to get a bigger one, or just were too absorbed in our careers to take the time to move. The kids grew up and moved out and now our house is just the right size. And it was paid for a long time ago.
 
SCCutler said:
Same objection.

If I were to move from easy driving distance of the office, I'd be moving to Fredericksburg. That would involve retirement, for which I am wholly unprepared.
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Spike's posts are the only ones that, when I read them, I hear in the author's distinctive voice.
 
bbchien said:
The trouble now is many folks are afraid to list their homes. The contract gets signed, the house closes and "where're you gonna live?"

Of course the moment the Fed stop buying debt, the boomlet will end....
Click to expand...

This - this is what I fear.

TangoWhiskey said:
Spike's posts are the only ones that, when I read them, I hear in the author's distinctive voice.
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Funny - for me, it's Greg Bockelman.
 
We've concluded that our costs wouldn't change much and the location wouldn't be as good.

bbchien said:
The trouble now is many folks are afraid to list their homes. The contract gets signed, the house closes and "where're you gonna live?"

Of course the moment the Fed stop buying debt, the boomlet will end....
Click to expand...
 
gazlinvon said:
Certain things must be consider before selling home.
Is your kitchen rustic?
Have you ever renovated your home?

These two questions might save you from a chance of selling your home with less price or you might have to try very hard to sell it.
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First post!!!!

:cheers: Welcome to Pilots of America!! :cheers:
 
AggieMike88 said:
His voice is distinctive. Reminds me of Garrison Kiellor.
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LOL, now that you mention it...

Karen still comments after last year's Gaston's trip, on Greg's ability to say nothing for an hour and then cut right to the chase with a witty comment in that voice.

:)
 
People that have been on the sidelines are running to the market now that interest rates have spiked. Funny, the reason interest rates were kept artificially low was to promote the exact thing that is happening now that they are going up
 
Pretty much every guest at our hotel talks about wanting to "buy something" on the island.

As a result, prices and sales are soaring into the stratosphere. With the oil money from Eagle Ford just North of us on the mainland, EVERYONE has money to invest.
 
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