But first, the pic that lead me to post this, found at Reynolds’ place
I was listening to CNN at the gym this morning and there was woe to be sprach in the housing market as the nationwide numbers for home prices from May of 2007 to May of 2008 came out.
A 16% drop.
I can only wish that I could get a 16% drop in prices here in the tri-county area of western Washington.
You see, The Wife and I are attempting to take advantage of the buyer’s market on housing right now. We do feel a bit like vultures, watching as homes sit on the market and the sellers drop $5K a month in the hopes to get people like us to buy.
And I am sure that these tactics will work, because the only house that we’ve seen so far that fit all of our criteria just closed, for someone else.
Here is a pic, for posterity, because all I can do now is be envious.
3br, 1.75ba on a 10000sqft lot on the top of a hill with few neighbors. Two fireplaces, a fully custom designed kitchen, enough parking to keep a dozen vehicles off the street and a view of Mt Rainier that was to die for. And I don’t even want to mention the superior SHTF defensive capabilities, because I might shed a tear.
The Wife and myself are a real estate agent’s worst nightmare, or depending on your viewpoint, their dream clients. We know what we want and what we won’t stand for, and the list is longer than even what I would consider reasonable. But if I can just get a list of addresses of homes, I’ve gotten good at picking out roof outlines from space via Google Satellite maps and Microsoft Virtual Earth. And being a map geek I can route a tour of homes like nobody’s business (both those programs suck goat balls for that task, btw).
The reason for this is that both her and I moved a bit when we were younger, and while we’re good at it, we don’t like it. We are looking for a two decade residence. I want to pay this one off before having to think about ever having to move again.
We could be moving by next week or not until next year, but we will be buying in the not too distant future, provided someone out there has a house worthy of our consideration.
Sorry to hear it.
You might approach the new owner with a purchase offer. Making a quick $5 or $10k in 30 days for doing nothing can be pretty tempting for anybody.
I don’t think you should be sorry at all. Although, I can understand having the better half be in nesting mode. Find something you like, do a decent job of negotiating, contingent upon the appraisal. The rest will take care of itself. Don’t stretch the budget to make it work. Establish a cutoff, 25% of gross earnings, including insurance and taxes, use an online calculator and you should be good, REGARDLESS of what the market does.
Housing price drop my ass. Housing prices were horribly over inflated. Another 5-7% drop would get the value back close to where it should be. I’ve seen some spec-house go up in subdivisons close to where I work and they’re thrown together pieces of sh*t and what they were asking for was close to robbery. Most of them were built to minimum spec.
No contracter worth his salt builds a house to minimum specs if his reputation means anything to him.
T-Bird, this is nothing new. I’ve lived in minimum spec houses (mostly off-post at military assignments) since the 60’s, and some of those houses were built in the 40’s, and I’ve heard that some were built as far back as the 30’s.
Those 30’s schlock-built tract homes are now, of course, sold mostly on their retro “charm”.
Beef all you want about inflated housing, but all the correction is doing is adding to our economic woes, so it does us no good to beef. Individually, we are NOT the market.
Phil, hope ya find what ya want, but consider getting less house and more land. Bigger lot means more kill zone (and you can farm it). Less house means easier to heat/cool.