Real Estate Market. Thoughts?

[gnihcraes]

friend of mine told me he was selling and moving last night.

Asking $465k. Three lots, decent house and garage. I'm shocked at what he's asking. It will be interesting to see if it sells.

http://www.remax.com/realestatehomes...012469553.html

[HoneyBadger]

I think too many people expect too much house for their first purchase; I know I did. You see the house your parents live in after years of trading up through equity, learning to manage money, general life lessons, etc. Then you move out and have a crappy job, no savings, consumer debt, etc and of course everything you look at will be WAY out of your budget.


tl;dr there is a pretty large gap between what people THINK they need or should have, and what they actually need, can afford, and as a result people spend way too much of their lives in a holding pattern until they wake up and accept reality.

Yep. The HoneyBadgers definitely made this mistake. Both sets of parents did well and live very comfortably now, but we had no perspective on what sort of house they had when they were in their 20s. We bought a much nicer house than we should have.

friend of mine told me he was selling and moving last night.

Asking $465k. Three lots, decent house and garage. I'm shocked at what he's asking. It will be interesting to see if it sells.

http://www.remax.com/realestatehomes...012469553.html

Your friend is off his freaking rocker! It's a 90 year old house that needs some major updating. Zillow showed a zestimate of $220k just 5 years ago... What a crazy world.

[gnihcraes]

Yep. The HoneyBadgers definitely made this mistake. Both sets of parents did well and live very comfortably now, but we had no perspective on what sort of house they had when they were in their 20s. We bought a much nicer house than we should have.

Your friend is off his freaking rocker! It's a 90 year old house that needs some major updating. Zillow showed a zestimate of $220k just 5 years ago... What a crazy world.

I think it was 1993 when we talked to our bank about a home loan. They approved us for like $250k! What the heck! No way can we afford to buy something like that with our new lives and careers. Found a decent small fixer upper with land for 70k. Same monthly as our apartment and utilities were cheaper. No crappy shared walls. Two kids later and we're still here. Small house isn't too bad, why people want the mansion size place for a just a few people is crazy. (we did build on and add a master bath etc) but still we're only <1000sqft.


Friend; well, yes, I thought so too. The description though of that house, it's actually three lots. L41-44. So the market up in that corner of town, they will probably be able to sell to some developer type and build three yuppie mansions. (same thing they did next to me recently)

[Madeinhb]

I think it was 1993 when we talked to our bank about a home loan. They approved us for like $250k! What the heck! No way can we afford to buy something like that with our new lives and careers. Found a decent small fixer upper with land for 70k. Same monthly as our apartment and utilities were cheaper. No crappy shared walls. Two kids later and we're still here. Small house isn't too bad, why people want the mansion size place for a just a few people is crazy. (we did build on and add a master bath etc) but still we're only <1000sqft.


Friend; well, yes, I thought so too. The description though of that house, it's actually three lots. L41-44. So the market up in that corner of town, they will probably be able to sell to some developer type and build three yuppie mansions. (same thing they did next to me recently)

It has to do with that Keeping up with the Jones' mentality that is on TV. My wife and I got an OK Townhouse a year ago. It's just the two of us. No kids. I'm 36 and spent most of time driving and Travelling. I'd rather spent more on a really nice car than be house poor.

[Irving]

Friend; well, yes, I thought so too. The description though of that house, it's actually three lots. L41-44. So the market up in that corner of town, they will probably be able to sell to some developer type and build three yuppie mansions. (same thing they did next to me recently)

Is there one property on the three lots? How realistic would it be to raze the current property and build two 4-plexes, or add a duplex to each of the existing lots?

[Aloha_Shooter]

Yep. The HoneyBadgers definitely made this mistake. Both sets of parents did well and live very comfortably now, but we had no perspective on what sort of house they had when they were in their 20s. We bought a much nicer house than we should have.

I always found that you couldn't go wrong if you stuck with housing that fell within the BAH provided by the AF. DoD sets the BAH assuming about 15% of your costs will be out-of-pocket anyway. Staying at or under your BAH means you won't have as nice a property as some of your peers but it frees up cash for your long term investments.

[lex137]

I will probably be buying a place shortly. I have looked and boy did we buy this house at the right time, I'm looking at condos now and they are going for what I paid for my current house (4bdrm, 3.25bath, finished basement). It sucks the market is so outrageous if I could only move to a cheaper state....

[airborneranger]

My house in the Springs will be going on the market in about a week or so. I bought it back in 08 when the market was tanking, so I got a deal on it. I was going to sell in '13 but I would have had to brought too much to the table. Now it appears that I will be able to sell it quickly and have a little cash left over.

[Great-Kazoo]

Is there one property on the three lots? How realistic would it be to raze the current property and build two 4-plexes, or add a duplex to each of the existing lots?

They can (after zoning change) have 3 lots with some of those "designer" hipster tiny homes for $$$. IMO $450K is not out of line for the home & lots. OR buy the package, build home on the open lots, sell for $300 k + Once that sells flip the existing home for $2 to low 300K and call it good.

[meatman]

The house next door to my rental house (my first house) was purchased in August 2014 for $295k. They completely scraped it and put up a two story house with a basement. The same house design is used on at least 4 other houses in the the Berekley neighborhood. The house sold for $862k in January. They even put a balcony on the back of the second story so they can check to see what my tenants are doing in the back yard. It's pretty crazy.

The house across the street sold about 2 months ago for $355k after being listed at $375k in November. I believe it's going to get scraped as well, otherwise the top is getting popped.

I don't think the house on listed for $465k on Chase street will go for more than $400k, but you never know!