re: Housing: WTF?

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We get it - you want things to be bad.

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I have no desire for things to get bad. I just know they are about to be bad.

It's the only way

I live in a low cost of living area of PA and the market here has definitely taken a turn. If a good house came on the market between 2010-2021, it was gone quickly, and we live in an area that is not exactly booming with population growth. Now things are sitting for a long time. A few great houses have come on the market since last fall and they're still sitting and probably will for a while. One of them I would be very interested in but they're still trying to get 2020 prices for it and with higher interests rates it's doable, but I just don't feel like its worth it. Our house has 3.50 rate currently and I don't feel like giving that up for 6.50-7.00% rate and with a much higher loan total.

I don't know how some of you guys who live in high cost areas do it, I know the salaries are higher, but so is everything else and that eats into the budget. A good friend of mine from college and her husband live in northern NJ, she's an NYC teacher and he's a cop. Combined they make about $230K, but their 1900 ft house cost them $615K, daycare runs 15K or so for their younger child, plus all of the other things that add up. I couldn't fathom that, it would keep me up at night.

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A good friend of mine from college and her husband live in northern NJ, she's an NYC teacher and he's a cop. Combined they make about $230K, but their 1900 ft house cost them $615K, daycare runs 15K or so for their younger child, plus all of the other things that add up. I couldn't fathom that, it would keep me up at night.

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They make a lot of money and have great job security with incredible healthcare and retirement benefits taken care of

Even with paying high NY state taxes they probably take home close to 13k per month.

So again, assuming they have a 4k PITI payment they have like 7800 a month AFTER taxes, health insurance, housing, daycare and retirement savings. They are probably sleeping just fine.

I swear some of y’all don’t understand basic math.

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Honestly if we were able to get 10k houses like I love bama was talking about I would buy like 25 of them and start my slumlord career and that would go a long way towards millenial reparations. I need to be made whole

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One of my $10,000 houses is now worth $150,000 - $200,000 and I can't sell the damn thing because my tenant is suing saying we had a verbal contract to sell it to him for $50,000.

Ah, the joys of being a landlord.

They got some dude trying to sell some woods outside loranger for like 20k an acre

Make land 1k/acre again

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A few great houses have come on the market since last fall and they're still sitting and probably will for a while. One of them I would be very interested in but they're still trying to get 2020 prices for it and with higher interests rates it's doable, but I just don't feel like its worth it. Our house has 3.50 rate currently and I don't feel like giving that up for 6.50-7.00% rate and with a much higher loan total.

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This right here explains a lot. Houses are sitting so long because sellers are still pricing them based on 3% interest rates. Doubling the rate increases the monthly mortgage payment by a lot of money.

Buyers using a mortgage, 85% of the market IIRC, can’t afford that.

Buying these overpriced houses as rentals doesn’t work either. In my area some dude wants $500,000 for a duplex that grosses a little over $2,000 per month. Assuming 100% occupancy, the roof and HVAC won’t need the be changed, tenants don’t break shite, etc, that’s $24k yield a year. Not hard to beat that with TIPS or Tbills, for example. And risk free. Unsurprisingly that house has been sitting on the market for over for a year. Before Covid it would’ve been priced in the $300k range and sold in a normal amount a time.

Another property a couple of miles away with a garage apartment that was actually in a nicer area was priced closer to pre-pandemic levels. The back of the envelope math showed that it cashed flower as a rental investment. That one was under contract in a few days.

I’m just basing it of the observations around here in PA. Markets are so different, I have no doubt your national average is correct, I’m just saying houses that would’ve been gone in a less than two weeks for the past decade have been sitting for almost 6 months now.

Again I’m not saying it’s every house, I’m saying desirable homes that would be gone quickly are now sitting.

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One of my $10,000 houses

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I don’t doubt that people bought homes for that in 2009, but short of living in some horrific neighborhood in Detroit, I can’t imagine finding one now.

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It's depressing to buy houses at 450k when you can see 3 years ago they were sold for 320k or so, but it's an exploding area and inflation took it's toll.

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still over priced. Buyers strike should’ve happened a year ago.