Author Topic: What explains this COVID housing bubble?  (Read 8903 times)

BDWW

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #50 on: September 18, 2020, 02:17:17 PM »
Median house prices increased by $88,000!! in my county last month...

HPstache

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #51 on: September 18, 2020, 02:32:47 PM »
Median house prices increased by $88,000!! in my county last month...

Where in MT are you? 


Dicey

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #53 on: September 18, 2020, 06:50:49 PM »
OMG, a house in a neighborhood we know went on the market for $1.149M and sold quickly for 1.4M!!! And no, it was not deliberately overpriced. It's a tract house in the "wrong" school district. And lest you think you can "find" it by looking at the numbers, it's not a lone example. Everything is selling quickly for a shitload over asking. Insanity!


BDWW

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #55 on: September 18, 2020, 07:19:06 PM »
Yeah, it's a weird state of continual ... I don't know ... bewilderment?  I've been saying it's crazy here for 20 years, and it just keeps going and getting crazier every year.

MrsCoolCat

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #56 on: September 19, 2020, 02:11:59 PM »
The $425k house I looked at (1,886 sqft not incl garage, 4BR, built in 92) on Thursday already had 11 offers this Saturday morning at $440k+ and with money towards a low appraisal (if applicable). This was even before their Saturday showings which were fully booked. At least I pretended to take it seriously and researched so that when I'm actually really really interested in a house I'll be a bit more knowledged as a "first" time home buyer. The house was beautiful and purposely below asking price for this bidding situation, but it was an extra 10 miles farther west in suburbia from Ft. Lauderdale where a lot of jobs usually are. I just can't see myself adding 20 miles r/t to my life when things get more normal.

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Dicey

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #57 on: September 19, 2020, 06:49:04 PM »
The $425k house I looked at (1,886 sqft not incl garage, 4BR, built in 92) on Thursday already had 11 offers this Saturday morning at $440k+ and with money towards a low appraisal (if applicable). This was even before their Saturday showings which were fully booked. At least I pretended to take it seriously and researched so that when I'm actually really really interested in a house I'll be a bit more knowledged as a "first" time home buyer. The house was beautiful and purposely below asking price for this bidding situation, but it was an extra 10 miles farther west in suburbia from Ft. Lauderdale where a lot of jobs usually are. I just can't see myself adding 20 miles r/t to my life when things get more normal.

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In your place, I'd keep my powder dry and wait this cycle out.

MrsCoolCat

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #58 on: September 19, 2020, 06:53:18 PM »
The $425k house I looked at (1,886 sqft not incl garage, 4BR, built in 92) on Thursday already had 11 offers this Saturday morning at $440k+ and with money towards a low appraisal (if applicable). This was even before their Saturday showings which were fully booked. At least I pretended to take it seriously and researched so that when I'm actually really really interested in a house I'll be a bit more knowledged as a "first" time home buyer. The house was beautiful and purposely below asking price for this bidding situation, but it was an extra 10 miles farther west in suburbia from Ft. Lauderdale where a lot of jobs usually are. I just can't see myself adding 20 miles r/t to my life when things get more normal.

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In your place, I'd keep my powder dry and wait this cycle out.
I'm leaning towards waiting also. My husband is on this forum. I found it and for quite some time he was on here more than I have been. He's usually cautious and conservative with those matters. Yet surprisingly he was more ready to submit an offer than I was. I guess when he finally got serious we reversed roles and I became the one listing out all the reasons why we don't need to RIGHT NOW.

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firemane

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #59 on: September 20, 2020, 09:53:34 AM »
Politics aside, I live in one of the cities with violent riots, and people are moving to outer ring suburbs because they don't feel safe.

MrsCoolCat

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #60 on: September 20, 2020, 10:00:09 AM »
Politics aside, I live in one of the cities with violent riots, and people are moving to outer ring suburbs because they don't feel safe.
Oh, I see. Riots haven't happened here in South Florida where I am in Broward county. It's more residential here as I live about 18 miles from Fort Lauderdale and about the same from downtown Miami. Nevertheless I live in a city where an article was released that either 30 or 40% of the average resident's income goes into their housing, so it's by no means cheap. If my family wasn't here I wouldn't mind moving. It's overpriced, hot and not as desireable as say San Diego, which obviously is even more expensive. But at least they have beautiful weather. Anyways, I need people to leave and sell me their homes, but not at the bidding wars and prices now. I can only hope, wish and wait.

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catlady

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #61 on: September 20, 2020, 10:38:56 AM »
It's getting insane up North too. We bought our house 2018 at municipal assessment for 361K. Last week there was a bidding war for a house on our street (smaller than ours, with a smaller lot) that sold for 475K which was 50K above asking price. And we are outside of Montreal. Honestly I am not sure we could afford to live here if we were looking right now....

chemistk

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #62 on: September 21, 2020, 05:45:49 AM »
We have friends who purchased their house a few years ago for $159k (3Br 1.5Ba older farmhouse with probably 1/4 acre lot). If their house was on the market today, it would be minimum $250k based on comps and probably would have had multiple offers vs their being able to reduce price because it had been sitting. Until my wife went through the current listings with them, they couldn't understand why we aren't hot on the hunt for something that fits our needs right now.

LaineyAZ

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #63 on: September 21, 2020, 07:49:10 AM »
Aren't there also real estate consortiums, both U.S. and non-U.S., who are buying up real estate as a tangible asset in these troubled economic times?  I suspect that is a big driver for these large price increases.

Here in Phoenix anything under $300,000 is snapped up.  Unfortunately, the price of rentals has also jumped, so not only are first-time buyers getting priced out, those who are renting are getting squeezed pretty hard.  A tough scenario for everyone.

Cranky

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #64 on: September 21, 2020, 07:50:55 AM »
The house we’re buying never even went on the market - we put a full price mostly cash offer in before it was officially listed. I plan to die in that house so I don’t care if there’s a bubble or not. LOL

firemane

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #65 on: September 21, 2020, 09:54:32 AM »

Here in Phoenix anything under $300,000 is snapped up. 

Same here in the midwest. But anything 400k+ doesn't seem to have the same amount of gains or much at all really. I am in a blue collar suburb where most houses are 150-300k. The fancier suburbs where the houses are 400k+ don't seem like they saw the same amount of gains, or really much more gains than average at all. Basically pay a rip off price for a 300k house or a normal price for a 400k.

I am in a lower cost condo so I haven't seen the same amount of gains as houses, but mine went from went up 20% very quickly. I want to buy a house in the 4+ range because it is a dream of mine to have some land and peace and quiet so I am not sure I need to worry too much about the price going up on anything I would want to buy.
« Last Edit: September 21, 2020, 09:56:44 AM by firemane »

goat_music_generator

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #66 on: September 21, 2020, 10:08:52 AM »
What do folks here think about the idea of waiting a while to buy, especially if you plan to buy cash?

Rates are extremely low now, but of course, that makes house prices higher, which is the opposite of what you want as a cash buyer...

(We're also now wondering whether a 15-year mortgage could make more sense than cash for us, if we were to buy sooner. Our original analysis was that having a mortgage has a slightly positive expected value, compared to NOT getting one, but it also increases our RE failure probability by an amount we're not that comfortable with compared to how much it costs.)

des999

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #67 on: September 21, 2020, 11:08:54 AM »
does this all mean it's a good time to wait, or should one buy now and hope we get a few more years of gains?  My thoughts are due to Covid, more folks are going to want to move out of large cities and into smaller remote areas.

crazy times we are living in, that is for sure. 

PS.  I'm looking in the Sacramento CA area, fwiw. 

bacchi

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #68 on: September 21, 2020, 11:50:59 AM »
Aren't there also real estate consortiums, both U.S. and non-U.S., who are buying up real estate as a tangible asset in these troubled economic times?  I suspect that is a big driver for these large price increases.

Here in Phoenix anything under $300,000 is snapped up.  Unfortunately, the price of rentals has also jumped, so not only are first-time buyers getting priced out, those who are renting are getting squeezed pretty hard.  A tough scenario for everyone.

Yes, there are companies, including hedge funds, buying up residential real estate. Part of the reason is what you mentioned -- post 2008, people couldn't afford a house or were afraid to take on debt so they rented.

Last year, in my MCOL (maybe HCOL?) city, large companies bought up >10% of the houses sold.

John Galt incarnate!

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #69 on: September 22, 2020, 10:00:32 AM »


Anecdotally I suspect city dwellers are buying country homes now that they're working from home, don't want to be cooped up in little city apartment with no yard, etc... but long term does this make sense?  Will WFH remain permanent for these buyers?


My home is located in the rural mountains of California.

What I'm hearing is that people from the cities are moving here to retire and some are buying second homes.

Bloop Bloop

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #70 on: September 22, 2020, 06:24:14 PM »
Aren't there also real estate consortiums, both U.S. and non-U.S., who are buying up real estate as a tangible asset in these troubled economic times?  I suspect that is a big driver for these large price increases.

Here in Phoenix anything under $300,000 is snapped up.  Unfortunately, the price of rentals has also jumped, so not only are first-time buyers getting priced out, those who are renting are getting squeezed pretty hard.  A tough scenario for everyone.

It usually makes sense as an investment to buy up land. You will always have a ready source of renters as long as the population keeps increasing. People are willing to work their whole lives to pay off their mortgages and there's no reason to suppose that if they couldn't afford to buy themselves, they wouldn't work just as hard to pay off rent.

Jon Bon

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #71 on: October 01, 2020, 07:52:46 AM »
zillow sent me an email this morning. 10% gain in September alone.

What the hell?

At what point do you sell?

Kevin S.

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #72 on: October 01, 2020, 08:21:07 AM »
so excuse my ignorance on the subject but how in the actual f is housing sustainable ?

current median house price in denver metro area - 400k avg

current median household income 80k avg

where do we go from here ?

in 5 yrs are housing prcices going to be 500k avg while wages stagnate ?

If wages stay stagnant like they have for (what seems like) the last 20 yrs - i don't see how most people can afford a house ?

Rent keeps going up...

With that said we just bought a house last month, was on the fence about buying for several years, neighbors (attached townhome) caught on fire - that pushed into buying haha
plus low apr - made sense to buy - hopefully we didn't just buy in a bubble about to pop ?

We had a heck of a time buying a house - every single house we looked at had multiple offers, some even were sold while the realtor was showing us the house - crazy ! 

We ended up buying a (hopefully minimal) fixer upper - 1950s ranch in the heart of denver. Still not cheap but hopefully we didn't make a dumb move.

Meh...1.99 apr can't be bad can it ?

I am glad to finally be in the market - our world is so uncertain though...

But seriously where do we go from here ? i feel like this next decade is really going to be interesting. Hopefully it's not finacially/mentally destructive for a lot of folks ?

« Last Edit: October 01, 2020, 08:23:21 AM by Kevin S. »

theoverlook

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #73 on: October 01, 2020, 08:43:17 AM »
zillow sent me an email this morning. 10% gain in September alone.

What the hell?

At what point do you sell?
I'm facing the same issue here. Bought at $350k in 2014, and the current tax valuation just got bumped to $630k. I paid an appraiser to look at comparable sales and see if he could come up with an appraisal to fight that and it seems like no, it's actually a little low. I don't want to sell, but if I could get >$700k like he thought was likely - that's a pretty tempting proposition. I owe less than $300k. But then you're back on the market to buy and everything else is similarly inflated.

firemane

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #74 on: October 01, 2020, 10:00:36 AM »
I heard that thousands of people moved to areas in my state that are allowing kids to play sports. I wonder if they would eventually move back to their old areas in the future?

slappy

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #75 on: October 01, 2020, 10:29:56 AM »
We sold a house this week. Three offers in 24 hours. Final offer was $5K more than our advertised price. About $45K higher than we thought the house was worth about 6 months ago.

Understand that this is a smallish town in flyover country. Bidding wars are rare. Low inventory is rare. I see it as a bubble in my amateur opinion.

Real estate agent confirmed what has been mentioned already: low interest rates, low inventory, people leaving big cities looking for somewhere quieter.

Buyers offered cash. No inspection. No requests. Leaving the suburbs of the nearest big city an hour or more away to be closer to family here. Boomer generation. Downsizing in sq footage and price.

I think there is a bubble here and by winter things will settle down. If the gov assistance ends and the economy doesn't recover, real estate might hit a hard stop making it a buyer's market instead of a seller's market.

Interesting.  I guess that's good or bad, depending on where you stand.

I'm in Southern NH and prices have been crazy for the past couple of years. It seems like they may be starting to cool a bit, but I can't really tell. Maybe further north it's a new thing, but in my area, it's been like this for awhile. I think some people are also trying to sell now while the market is hot. I know a couple people who did that a couple of years ago. Wanted to sell while the market was hot, so they sold and are now renting while they decide where they want to retire. Of course the market still seems to be hot, so who knows if they won that game.

Yes, New Hampshire!  One of the places I’m watching closely.  My grandmother was in Exeter, her house sold quick.  Lots of money going into that town.  I am watching the White Mountains, Waterville Valley in particular.

I read an article in a local news outlet yesterday that talked about the increased school enrollment in the waterville valley this year. It said people are either moving there in order to have more space for social distancing, or they are using their vacation home as the primary home for the year. So I guess that explains some of the issue there.

https://www.wmur.com/article/some-nh-schools-see-increase-in-enrollment-due-to-covid-19/34197029#

Hula Hoop

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #76 on: October 01, 2020, 10:41:33 AM »
This all depends where you are from. I'm from NYC and, apparently, apartment prices have fallen sharply.  I guess with everyone telecommuting, they're moving to the 'burbs.

ketchup

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #77 on: October 01, 2020, 11:35:44 AM »
This all depends where you are from. I'm from NYC and, apparently, apartment prices have fallen sharply.  I guess with everyone telecommuting, they're moving to the 'burbs.
Chicago area here.  Seems like it's the cheaper burbs that are the most inflated.   A house that would have been maybe 120k a year ago is almost 200k now.  I have two in such areas that I'll be cashing out soon.  It's bananas.

Jon Bon

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #78 on: October 01, 2020, 01:28:06 PM »
so excuse my ignorance on the subject but how in the actual f is housing sustainable ?

It's not,  but all that money being dumped into the system has to go somewhere. Paired with never before seen low rates, and people desperate for more space you get the perfect storm.

Yes it is a major problem for young people trying to save for a DP.

I am thinking about a bigger place, but it truly is funny money at this point. The "equity" I currently have, the rate I'm borrowing at and the amount I borrow feels fake.

Bloop Bloop

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #79 on: October 01, 2020, 06:45:54 PM »
so excuse my ignorance on the subject but how in the actual f is housing sustainable ?

current median house price in denver metro area - 400k avg

current median household income 80k avg

where do we go from here ?

in 5 yrs are housing prcices going to be 500k avg while wages stagnate ?

If wages stay stagnant like they have for (what seems like) the last 20 yrs - i don't see how most people can afford a house ?

Rent keeps going up...

With that said we just bought a house last month, was on the fence about buying for several years, neighbors (attached townhome) caught on fire - that pushed into buying haha
plus low apr - made sense to buy - hopefully we didn't just buy in a bubble about to pop ?

We had a heck of a time buying a house - every single house we looked at had multiple offers, some even were sold while the realtor was showing us the house - crazy ! 

We ended up buying a (hopefully minimal) fixer upper - 1950s ranch in the heart of denver. Still not cheap but hopefully we didn't make a dumb move.

Meh...1.99 apr can't be bad can it ?

I am glad to finally be in the market - our world is so uncertain though...

But seriously where do we go from here ? i feel like this next decade is really going to be interesting. Hopefully it's not finacially/mentally destructive for a lot of folks ?

You can't compare median incomes to median houses because not all families earn enough to buy a house. If you have 10 households and 10 houses that doesn't mean that each owns 1:1. It might be that 4 rent and 6 own. Of the six owners, there might be 3 who own 1 property each, 2 who own 2 properties each and 1 who owns 3 properties (10 properties total). The median house is therefore somewhere between the 8th and 9th families in terms of affordability. Therefore the median house only has to be affordable to the 85th percentile household in such a scenario.

You might wish for a world where there's 1:1 compatibility but that's not how capitalism works. Housing is now an investment for rent-seekers.

ketchup

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #80 on: October 02, 2020, 08:27:29 AM »
We though we’d test the waters and list our house last month since  we plan to move to Property we have within a year...  We listed 25% over the last 2018 appraisal when we refinanced and got a cash offer full price first weekend. I don’t know whether to take the offer or wait until we really want to move in 1 to 1.5 years. Who is making bets what housing will be like in 1 to 2 years from seller standpoint?  Sell now or wait and hope high prices hold up in a year?
Personally, I say cash the fuck out.  Bird in the hand.  That's what I'm doing for two houses I wasn't planning on selling this year.  I don't see things getting better next year (unless the economy is roaring by March, which I would consider extremely unlikely, we're going to see a lot of foreclosures once all this mortgage payment suspension stuff runs out), but my crystal ball is in the shop.  Maybe I'm missing out on 200k of gains by selling soon instead of in a year.  We don't really know.

slappy

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #81 on: October 05, 2020, 08:40:59 AM »
We though we’d test the waters and list our house last month since  we plan to move to Property we have within a year...  We listed 25% over the last 2018 appraisal when we refinanced and got a cash offer full price first weekend. I don’t know whether to take the offer or wait until we really want to move in 1 to 1.5 years. Who is making bets what housing will be like in 1 to 2 years from seller standpoint?  Sell now or wait and hope high prices hold up in a year?

Why would you list your property if you weren't actually intending to sell it?

Dicey

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #82 on: October 05, 2020, 09:02:05 AM »
We though we’d test the waters and list our house last month since  we plan to move to Property we have within a year...  We listed 25% over the last 2018 appraisal when we refinanced and got a cash offer full price first weekend. I don’t know whether to take the offer or wait until we really want to move in 1 to 1.5 years. Who is making bets what housing will be like in 1 to 2 years from seller standpoint?  Sell now or wait and hope high prices hold up in a year?

Why would you list your property if you weren't actually intending to sell it?
Yeah, same question.

slappy

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #83 on: October 06, 2020, 06:01:22 AM »
We though we’d test the waters and list our house last month since  we plan to move to Property we have within a year...  We listed 25% over the last 2018 appraisal when we refinanced and got a cash offer full price first weekend. I don’t know whether to take the offer or wait until we really want to move in 1 to 1.5 years. Who is making bets what housing will be like in 1 to 2 years from seller standpoint?  Sell now or wait and hope high prices hold up in a year?

Why would you list your property if you weren't actually intending to sell it?


The question was about listing primary residence as we plan to build a house in next year on land already owned.. so sell now or sell later..

You said you listed the property and got an offer on it. So my question was why would you list the property if you weren't intending to sell? Sell now or sell later would have been determined before you decided to list it.

theoverlook

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #84 on: October 06, 2020, 07:39:19 AM »
If you have already listed it with a realtor and received a full price offer then you are likely obligated to pay the realtor's commissions whether or not you sell it. Most listing contracts have that requirement to avoid exactly this situation.

theoverlook

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #85 on: October 08, 2020, 08:01:38 AM »
If you have already listed it with a realtor and received a full price offer then you are likely obligated to pay the realtor's commissions whether or not you sell it. Most listing contracts have that requirement to avoid exactly this situation.

No realtor.. way off topic now
Not off topic at all. Your question was "sell now or" and this is very important info to the decision. If you don't actually want advice then why ask?

joe189man

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #86 on: October 08, 2020, 01:24:23 PM »
so excuse my ignorance on the subject but how in the actual f is housing sustainable ?

current median house price in denver metro area - 400k avg

current median household income 80k avg

where do we go from here ?

in 5 yrs are housing prcices going to be 500k avg while wages stagnate ?

If wages stay stagnant like they have for (what seems like) the last 20 yrs - i don't see how most people can afford a house ?

Rent keeps going up...

With that said we just bought a house last month, was on the fence about buying for several years, neighbors (attached townhome) caught on fire - that pushed into buying haha
plus low apr - made sense to buy - hopefully we didn't just buy in a bubble about to pop ?

We had a heck of a time buying a house - every single house we looked at had multiple offers, some even were sold while the realtor was showing us the house - crazy ! 

We ended up buying a (hopefully minimal) fixer upper - 1950s ranch in the heart of denver. Still not cheap but hopefully we didn't make a dumb move.

Meh...1.99 apr can't be bad can it ?

I am glad to finally be in the market - our world is so uncertain though...

But seriously where do we go from here ? i feel like this next decade is really going to be interesting. Hopefully it's not finacially/mentally destructive for a lot of folks ?

for the Denver Metro they are closer to $600k

https://www.westword.com/news/denver-home-buyers-face-toughest-market-in-history-11816618

i think folks are trying to get away from over crowded cities to less crowded ones, remote working is a big driver,

mrs sideways

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #87 on: October 12, 2020, 07:50:34 PM »
does this all mean it's a good time to wait, or should one buy now and hope we get a few more years of gains?  My thoughts are due to Covid, more folks are going to want to move out of large cities and into smaller remote areas.

crazy times we are living in, that is for sure. 

PS.  I'm looking in the Sacramento CA area, fwiw.

I don't think anyone can tell you; there's a lot of weird, 1-off factors at play here. If there were ever a time when "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent", this is it.

FWIW our neighbors are part of this phenomenon. They're both in tech (he's software, she's hardware) so while they're in debt, their jobs are more rock-solid than ever, and the prospect of 100% remote work combined with sharing a house with two distance-learning kids pushed them to buy a second home several hours away. They basically live there now, on an acre property, which is lots of room to just let the kids run wild when they're not doing online school.

Basically, there are people out there who have money, they can suddenly work from anywhere, and they've been cooped up for half a year. I can't imagine, under any circumstances, buying a second home myself, but I can understand why others would see it as an escape they can afford.
« Last Edit: October 12, 2020, 07:52:18 PM by mrs sideways »

ender

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #88 on: October 12, 2020, 08:10:19 PM »
All I've got to say is that my worry about buying early this year - we closed in March - seems to, so far, have been for naught.

BDWW

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Re: What explains this COVID housing bubble?
« Reply #89 on: October 24, 2020, 02:09:52 PM »
Well, we got a ~foot of snow outside right now, and tomorrow has a high of 9*F, low of -5*F.  Don't think it'll have any effect, but I'm getting a bit of schadenfreude thinking there's got to be at least a couple tranplants thinking "What have I got myself into?"

:P