re: Could you afford to buy your own house if you had to buy it today?

No, and that's a one part of the inventory shortages. There's other aspects but that is one for sure...can't replace what they currently have.

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I continue to try to figure out how people are paying the notes on these $700/800K houses

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People will buy a house at whatever the bank will approve them for vs. buying something in the price range in which they should purchase. People should have stood their ground more in some of this. That has also contributed to this artificially inflated housing market.

We sold our house 3 1/2 months ago and have looked at a number of houses, but I will not under any circumstance allow myself to succumb to the bidding war market that we are in.

We are currently in our 5th wheel camper and will probably be in our 5th wheel camper until this Fall or the 1st quarter of next year. The interest rates and the economic slow down should get things to where I'm more comfortable in purchasing something. Hopefully, the market will allow me to to pay at least 70-80% up front on a mortgage.

It truly is mind boggling at what banks will approve people for on a purchase.

I’ve half joked with my wife that we won’t ever be able to move after securing a 3% rate for 30 years. The loan value alone with rates on track for north of 6% makes the opportunity cost difficult to justify. We also never imagined our house would be a “million dollar house” but we are much closer to that at this point than expected.

In TX, this biggest issue is that blooming property taxes can really create pressure on household budgets. Between property taxes and homeowners insurances, our monthly escrow is up $400 in the last year. I can realistically see that trend continuing for multiple years going forward.

I bought a storm-damaged home for less than half what it is worth and since I am a GC I repaired it for well under what it would normally cost. No way I would buy this much house otherwise. The main house is 3700 heated and the guest house is 1300 heated on an acre just outside of the city limits.

Nope, its now valued at 4 times what I paid for it.

Friend of mine sent me a home that’s selling for 475k. Said they offered on it. I didn’t ask, but that’s gotta be close to a 3k note today right?

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What about you could you buy your house today given your financial position?

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Yes, but we bought our current house at the end of December 2020, and had been in the prior house over 20 years. Would probably pay cash today for a new house as wouldn't be interested in a 6% mortgage, although the first place we ever bought in ATL was just over 8.5%. Most of the current price increases were driven by the absurdly low 30 year purchase mortgages at 2.25% - 3%. Put 55% down and have 6+ more years at 1.625% and will pay off in lump sum if we are still here. It's hard to find good homes for less than $700k here in Santa Fe and the really nice ones are $900k to $2M+ depending on location.

Just built my house and moved in February.

We bought our precious house in 2015 for 160 and sold it in 2022 for 242. That’s wild.

We could buy it again for the market rate but the 5-6% APR would have really sucked. We paid around ~130-40 a square foot so it wasn’t too bad. Lumber got us.

Definitely would not be able to afford mine