The real estate market in my neck of the woods has gone to hell in a hand basket, although realtors like to use less graphic language like "it's a buyer's market" or "we are in a temporary downtrend." Today I looked up the house we downsized from in 2006 on
zillow and was astounded to see that it is currently valued $200,000 less than what we sold it for two years ago. Back then, when we put the house on the market, it sold in less than a week and we had three offers above the asking price. It's sobering... I think the family who bought our old house will be OK, though, since they were solid buyers.No one's been left unscathed. The townhouse we moved to when we downsized has lost at least $115,000 in value in the last two years. Thankfully, we are not thinking about selling for a while, and we since we bought it in 2003, we actually have some equity. What would be a nightmare is to owe more on your mortgage than your house is worth.
A family I know is in that predicament. They bought their house for $620,000 in 2006 and got 100% financing through a special first-time buyer program for teachers. Believe it or not, their purchase was "entry level" in our area but they had to buy in a nearby town because there was nothing available in their price range in our city (only "dumps" according to them). Today, their house is worth $454,000. Their saving grace is that they are able to make the payments so they are OK for now. When will they have equity again? That remains to be seen, but it could be years.
September 25th, 2008 at 04:01 pm 1222358473
September 25th, 2008 at 04:40 pm 1222360825
Shew, that is alot of value lost. Makes me wish that BF & I were in a position to buy our first home right now, maybe we could catch the upswing of things.
And gamecock - I'd be furious too. I bet he doesn't feel so smart now.
September 25th, 2008 at 04:46 pm 1222361208
September 25th, 2008 at 06:41 pm 1222368119
Anyways...back to my own reality..I am grateful the real estate market is where it is...I hope to get in on it soon...just gotta eBay a bit more.
September 26th, 2008 at 03:58 am 1222401485
All of them foreclosed. We joke if we had a crystal ball we would have sold our house at $650k and scooped it back up when it foreclosed for $350k. (We talked so often of cashing out and moving up north, when the market was super high. Just SO tempting. If we knew we could cash out and just move back in a couple of years for half the price, I dare say we would have!)
It's still a solid $50k over what we paid for it in 2001. Amazing how much the sky is falling over such a short/quick bubble. OF course around here more people are in trouble for tapping equity than for buying high.
September 26th, 2008 at 02:29 pm 1222439365