Tales from this insane real estate market [Home sales]

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scifilover
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by scifilover »

DW went for a walk a couple of days ago....saw a sign for a house for sale.....no flyers so she came home with the address.....I looked it up on Zillow.....home sold 6-23-20 for $565k....sold again 12-24-20 for $875k......now listed for ......$1.495k....3000 SF....suburb of Seattle.....out of about 3000 homes in this area, only 2 others listed for sale.....
Isabelle77
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by Isabelle77 »

scifilover wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 8:44 am DW went for a walk a couple of days ago....saw a sign for a house for sale.....no flyers so she came home with the address.....I looked it up on Zillow.....home sold 6-23-20 for $565k....sold again 12-24-20 for $875k......now listed for ......$1.495k....3000 SF....suburb of Seattle.....out of about 3000 homes in this area, only 2 others listed for sale.....
Yep, we're in SW Washington and there's a home near us that closed for 900K in 12/2019. Pending at 1.5mil in a few days this past week.
TheoLeo
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by TheoLeo »

Why is the real estate market insane while in the stock market "nobody knows nothin"? Also there is a lot of advice in this thread on waiting a little longer for the market to cool off. Is it really so easy to time the real estate market compared to stocks? What happened to time in the market beats timing the market?
Tingting1013
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by Tingting1013 »

TheoLeo wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 12:36 pm Why is the real estate market insane while in the stock market "nobody knows nothin"? Also there is a lot of advice in this thread on waiting a little longer for the market to cool off. Is it really so easy to time the real estate market compared to stocks? What happened to time in the market beats timing the market?
Exactly!!!!!!
mikejuss
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by mikejuss »

TheoLeo wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 12:36 pm Why is the real estate market insane while in the stock market "nobody knows nothin"? Also there is a lot of advice in this thread on waiting a little longer for the market to cool off. Is it really so easy to time the real estate market compared to stocks? What happened to time in the market beats timing the market?
A house is not an investment; it's a place to live.
50% VTSAX | 25% VTIAX | 25% VBTLX (retirement), 25% VTEAX (taxable)
Tingting1013
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by Tingting1013 »

mikejuss wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 12:39 pm
TheoLeo wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 12:36 pm Why is the real estate market insane while in the stock market "nobody knows nothin"? Also there is a lot of advice in this thread on waiting a little longer for the market to cool off. Is it really so easy to time the real estate market compared to stocks? What happened to time in the market beats timing the market?
A house is not an investment; it's a place to live.
Choosing to buy and own your home is absolutely an investment decision. Otherwise you can just rent.

Buying converts a living expense into an asset and therefore into net worth. Renting keeps it as a living expense.
Last edited by Tingting1013 on Tue Apr 27, 2021 12:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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jfn111
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by jfn111 »

TheoLeo wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 12:36 pm Why is the real estate market insane while in the stock market "nobody knows nothin"? Also there is a lot of advice in this thread on waiting a little longer for the market to cool off. Is it really so easy to time the real estate market compared to stocks? What happened to time in the market beats timing the market?
Because anyone who has ever bought a house considers themselves a real estate expert. That's why all these type of threads have 10 pages. :shock:
IMO
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by IMO »

tfunk wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 3:44 pm
anoop wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 4:21 pm Calculated Risk doesn't think the boom as bad as the housing bubble.
https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2021 ... iller.html
The author states this boom is similar to the late 70's or late 80's but nothing like the housing bubble.

We bought our first house in the LA area in 1989. Low inventory, multiple people touring open houses. Not with offers over listing price like now but still a frenzy to buy. We paid $240,000. Immediately went down in value it seemed at the time - three years later we got it reappraised for $190,000 in order to reduce our taxes - a 20% reduction in value. Finally sold it 14 years later in 2003 for $352,000 - about 3% appreciation per year from our purchase price. Zillow says it is worth $840,000 now. About 4.75% increase annually including the 2008-2009 bust (14% in just the last year alone).

Point being, house values go up, they go down. Buying a house should satisfy a need for stability and building up equity long term. Short term (3-5 years), no one knows where prices will go. You have to be lucky to buy at the bottom or unlucky to buy at the top.
Have family that bought a similar priced home (a rental) at that time in the same market. What I remember at the time was another housing craze. The same old story, the land is going to run out, housing can and will go to the level/cost of the astronomical Japanese housing market. It certainly wasn't from low mortgage interest rates as I believe rates were over 7% if I remember correctly?

Then it crashed. In hindsight, I'm not even sure why the market crashed? It never gets talked about/analyzed much. I don't think it was due to easy lending becuase back then you had to have 20% downpayments. I think the original plan was to flip the rental in about 4 yrs time.

Alot of stress about selling at a loss or holding on to give the market time to recover. As you said, it took quite a long time to recover. Fortunately they did hold on for the long term and still own the property. But ironically, as you note, 4.75% annual increase. Definitely not bad, but the total stock market would have done better (however, the debt was leveraged with a mortgage but as I noted, mortgage rates weren't that low).

And I agree, people should always be thinking long term. The above family experience taught me early on that while it seems a "sure thing" it's not. Will this current housing crisis drop significantly, drop just a little, stay stable for long periods, continue on what seems unstainable year or year increase, or do something else is really anyone's guess.

People who buy and have to move sooner than long term later (job loss/transfer, etc) may find that the home did not appreciate like housing has in the last year or so, that their monthly mortgage payment amounted to little actual equity, and that there are large fees/expenses involved in selling a home.

Time will tell how this all plays out . . .
rascott
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by rascott »

flyfishers83 wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 10:44 pm The market to buy rental properties has been silly around me with houses I wouldn't touch having multiple offers sight unseen. Just yesterday, my neighbor stopped by to let me know he's moving. Got an unsolicited offer for close to 50% more than he paid for his house like 15 months ago. The neighbor two house away also got an unsolicited offer for similar money. We don't want to move, but was told we could probably sell for 50% over what we paid 2 years ago. I keep being surprised, as I live in a town of 16,000 with the closest real airport 2 hours away. It's the biggest town in the area, but still a small town. Didn't expect these kinds of things to happen.


I don't understand why people would sell to an unsolicited, private offer (unless this is a very unique property). If he wanted to actually sell it for that price..... put it on the open market FSBO via Zillow.... and see who else would pay it (or more).

I get multiple calls daily asking to buy one of my houses, I don't even bother answering them. Because I know any offer is going to be lower than what offering it on open market would bring if I did want to sell any of them.
majiaknight
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by majiaknight »

ASpenderInRecovery wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 8:11 pm - There are no rules in this real estate market
- What people are willing to pay is totally unrelated to the underlying value, lot, size, condition of the home
- Every home sells for over asking, you have to be willing to overpay (10-20%) to buy a home right now
I think this is no surprise to most people on this forum as most of Bogleheads' core stock index holding e.g. S&P500 is up 47% from a year ago during the pandemic which is also crazy. One friend of mine bought 3 new construction SFH ($300-$400K range) in NC/SC early this year trying to diversify their portfolio and reduce their stock exposure when mortgage rate was historically low.
Jaylat
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by Jaylat »

Our neighbors, a nice older Korean couple, are putting their North San Diego County house up for sale for $2.08 million (distant sea view, 5 bedrooms, 3600sf). They probably paid $500,000 20 years ago. They run two dry cleaning stores here and are very hardworking, frugal people.

They are moving to LA and bought a similar size house in Brentwood for $4 million. Actually, their son, a hedge fund owner, bought it for them. He paid $20 million in taxes alone last year, and bought his Beverly Hills place for $15 million, paying cash. He wants his parents nearby and money is no object.

Even though they got the house for free, their RE taxes will jump from well under $10,000 to over $40,000 a year.
maryslifestrategies
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by maryslifestrategies »

May I add a question to the tales from the insane real estate market: has the average time from offer to closing changed? Any and all insights would be welcomed!
Scotttheking
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by Scotttheking »

I am buying a house. Can verify market is insane. Didn’t feel like waiting any longer. Now for market to stay insane until I sell current house.
PowderDay9
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by PowderDay9 »

TheoLeo wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 12:36 pm Why is the real estate market insane while in the stock market "nobody knows nothin"? Also there is a lot of advice in this thread on waiting a little longer for the market to cool off. Is it really so easy to time the real estate market compared to stocks? What happened to time in the market beats timing the market?
Because the long-term return on real estate is sightly above inflation. Much less than the long-term return on stocks. It's not that much of a surprise when stocks go up 20-30% in a year. It is much more so when real estate does.

Also people don't borrow $1M to buy SP500 but they do this for houses all the time, amplifying the risk of buying something that just substantially increased in price.
skierincolorado
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by skierincolorado »

Stuff around here has been listing for 530-550 and selling at 600. Under 460 a year ago.
khram
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by khram »

A lot of great anecdotes in this thread. I'm renting but have seen the craziness. A coworker made a huge profit on his house in just a couple years, I forget how much it went up. But he also bought into the higher price on his next home. My old boss bought like a million dollar house in a not so expensive city. Didn't seem like a fancy house, I guess a little bit big. A friend of mine bought a new house in a small city and the competition was insane, people are buying sight unseen.

Some of the people I know sold off their RSUs or other stocks they owned for the down payment. That's fine of course, but they didn't just have all this cash sitting around, and had the stock market not recovered quite quickly, they wouldn't have been able to buy (and they would have had to explain this to their wife and maybe their kids, or else take money from 401k etc. and pretend it's all fine). This also tells you they're probably not the type with a few million stashed away in taxable index fund assets. They probably max out their 401ks/IRAs, hold on to their RSUs, and spend what I would regard as an insane amount on the big house, lots of kids, etc. I doubt they'll be retiring early. I know someone who worked part-time at a gym and had some WFH job before the pandemic. No idea what she made, but if she was working side hours at the gym, I doubt she was making that much in her regular job. And based on some things she said, she didn't know much at all about stocks/investing/etc. But she was talking about how she had to upgrade to a $600k house (MCOL area) because she had a kid now. That would've been pre-pandemic prices, so probably $800k now. There are certainly a lot of rich people in the US, but I still think most people are up to their eyeballs in debt, and many can somehow get approved for mortgages that they shouldn't be taking on.

I'm paranoid about buying a house. Whenever I move apartments, it is of course to solve a problem, either lack of space, or bad management, etc. Yet every time I move there ends up being a new problem or two I hadn't considered. As I've never owned a house, I would feel very uncomfortable buying a house without vetting it, having to make an offer same-day, or having to offer $100k+ over asking price. So I get a bit paranoid about the problems I didn't think of if I were to buy a house, especially since it's harder to move out of a house than an apartment. The mania is just insane.

So I'm going to sit out on the sidelines. The interest rates of course make an impact. I couldn't believe it the other day when I saw some mortgage rates charts from the 70s and 80s, and interest rates were 13% or 17% or something like this. If the bubble doesn't burst, we'll be having 80%+ of the country not owning a house and cramming into apartments. People on the upper part of the K are doing well, but most people haven't seen wage increases in decades. And maybe it's strange anyway. In much of the world, people live in much tighter quarters, the idea of having 2-5k sqft for 2-6 people seems a bit strange. I expect to see more of a shift to multigenerational housing in America.

I don't particularly dislike apartment living. Mostly having a big garage where I could put some of my workout gear would be nice, and not having to deal with some of the dumb things apartment management somehow thinks is a good idea. I guess I'm watching in a bit of amusement at the mania.

I also think moratorium has been extended through June now? I don't follow it too closely since I've been paying my bills. But people aren't going to sell if they don't have to pay their bills. Once it expires, we'll see how it all plays out.

One person mentioned that with all the COVID deaths, there may have been a transfer of wealth. Considering adverse COVID outcomes have disproportionately affected the poor, I doubt that has much impact. But boomers are entering the age where they're starting to die of other causes, and this is going to be a historic transfer of wealth, slowly over the next couple decades.
Sasquatch1
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by Sasquatch1 »

softmax wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 8:52 pm I feel you. It's unfortunate to be in this market and sometimes I feel bad for being a millennial (how come we work so hard but the quality of life is rapidly declining???).
I think as long as your cashflow is sufficient to help you achieve your financial goals, it's probably a better idea to continue shopping. Nobody really knows what will happen to this market.
I promise you that is the news propaganda in your head. We do not work near as hard or have near as low quality of life as people did 30-50 years ago. Not even close on average. Go ask your dad or grandpa what it was like before credit cards and easy debt.

When you needed the money or couldn’t buy it, or when their interest rates were 15%!

A lot of blue collar workers use to rent because they couldn’t afford to buy, now all those have been able to buy houses within the last 20 years much easier.

The only reason we work hard and aren’t left with as much free expendable money is because now days we have a BAD case of the WANTS!.

It’s no longer “what does it cost?” It’s now only “how much is the note?”
LINY
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by LINY »

The big push in demand is urban residents seeking more space to work from home and no need to worry about a commute. With that being said, a lot of firms are now calling employees back into the office. I really wonder how that is going to impact the market. I have a friend who’s commute went from 35 minutes to over an hour. He’s said,”I’m working from home and I need office space, if my boss calls me back in the office full time. I’ll just find a job that allows for WFH”...

Also, working for a small lender I have to laugh when people say “Underwriting standards have improved drastically since the last bubble”. Which they have, with out a doubt. But with the insane amount of volume is nearly impossible to be so detailed. Many deals are slipping though the cracks. In other words, a lot of applicants don’t have the same spending patterns as bogelheads. Mostly a ton of debt and high incomes.

In conclusion, I think the current market may taper in the next 3-6 months as cities reopen and employers revamp their work from home policies.
alfaspider
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by alfaspider »

IMO wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 12:51 pm
tfunk wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 3:44 pm
anoop wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 4:21 pm Calculated Risk doesn't think the boom as bad as the housing bubble.
https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2021 ... iller.html
The author states this boom is similar to the late 70's or late 80's but nothing like the housing bubble.

We bought our first house in the LA area in 1989. Low inventory, multiple people touring open houses. Not with offers over listing price like now but still a frenzy to buy. We paid $240,000. Immediately went down in value it seemed at the time - three years later we got it reappraised for $190,000 in order to reduce our taxes - a 20% reduction in value. Finally sold it 14 years later in 2003 for $352,000 - about 3% appreciation per year from our purchase price. Zillow says it is worth $840,000 now. About 4.75% increase annually including the 2008-2009 bust (14% in just the last year alone).

Point being, house values go up, they go down. Buying a house should satisfy a need for stability and building up equity long term. Short term (3-5 years), no one knows where prices will go. You have to be lucky to buy at the bottom or unlucky to buy at the top.
Have family that bought a similar priced home (a rental) at that time in the same market. What I remember at the time was another housing craze. The same old story, the land is going to run out, housing can and will go to the level/cost of the astronomical Japanese housing market. It certainly wasn't from low mortgage interest rates as I believe rates were over 7% if I remember correctly?

Then it crashed. In hindsight, I'm not even sure why the market crashed? It never gets talked about/analyzed much. I don't think it was due to easy lending becuase back then you had to have 20% downpayments. I think the original plan was to flip the rental in about 4 yrs time.

Alot of stress about selling at a loss or holding on to give the market time to recover. As you said, it took quite a long time to recover. Fortunately they did hold on for the long term and still own the property. But ironically, as you note, 4.75% annual increase. Definitely not bad, but the total stock market would have done better (however, the debt was leveraged with a mortgage but as I noted, mortgage rates weren't that low).

And I agree, people should always be thinking long term. The above family experience taught me early on that while it seems a "sure thing" it's not. Will this current housing crisis drop significantly, drop just a little, stay stable for long periods, continue on what seems unstainable year or year increase, or do something else is really anyone's guess.

People who buy and have to move sooner than long term later (job loss/transfer, etc) may find that the home did not appreciate like housing has in the last year or so, that their monthly mortgage payment amounted to little actual equity, and that there are large fees/expenses involved in selling a home.

Time will tell how this all plays out . . .
I think a lot of what happened in 1989 as today is a demographic lump:

Image

We are now getting into a period where there is a distinct hump for people who are getting into their peak homebuying years (30s). Even those who aren't home buyers are getting to the age where they no longer want roommates, and so are still putting more demand on housing. Where's the other hump? People who are in their 60s, who were in peak homebuying years in the late 1980s. That could point to a period of 5-7 years with a lot of housing demand.
IMO
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by IMO »

[/quote]

I think a lot of what happened in 1989 as today is a demographic lump:

Image

We are now getting into a period where there is a distinct hump for people who are getting into their peak homebuying years (30s). Even those who aren't home buyers are getting to the age where they no longer want roommates, and so are still putting more demand on housing. Where's the other hump? People who are in their 60s, who were in peak homebuying years in the late 1980s. That could point to a period of 5-7 years with a lot of housing demand.
[/quote]



=======================================================
I don't know, I don't buy the population hump to the housing bubble that was brewing developed in SoCal back in 1989. It sounds nice, just saying the cards were aligning with enough buyers of age at the time. But then that whole theory just falls apart a few years later when the bubble broke and the market crashed. Still the same population that came of age is around but housing is depressed for years and these houses did not sell despite all the buyers who supposedly now had come of age.

This is similar to part of the current argument. Housing stock was not being built over the last x number of years and now because of that, things are coming to a head because so many buyers came of age. From personal experience and experience from friends, during the summer of 2020 one could still look at a home be it a resale or a new build (various areas of country) and there wasn't a housing buy panic. Things were still in overall equilibrium, with the exception of VHCOLA areas that often are not in balance. Then it all of a sudden flipped and panic buying set in, FOMO. The only coming of age part of the buyers was/is driven by the WFH mass flooding of the buyer part of the market.
newyorker
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by newyorker »

1rl9DS5gl2 wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 7:28 am I follow the Burlington Vt market pretty closely. I'm aware of a house that listed in 2016 for $650K. It sold a little under 2 years later for $608K. It hit the market again at $899K last week and was under contract in 3 days. Until the sale is finalized I won't be able to see what the actual sales price was but I wouldn't be surprised if it went for $1 million or more. Strange times.
Huh seriously? I thought burlington is a dying city... well VT is a dying state.
cysewr
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by cysewr »

Saw a house hit Zillow the other day that looked like a reasonable option (Spokane Valley): 1950's rancher with what appeared to be some nice updates, 4 bed/2 bath, 2400 sqft, nice backyard, listed at $335k. We go to tour the home, and immediately realize that photography is an amazing thing. Tons of wear and tear, awful looking finish work, smell of cat urine, updates were poorly done DIY projects, etc. Honestly, it was a complete disaster.

Seller's agent apparently insinuated to our agent that it will go at least $45k over asking, based on the offers they already have received.
Dottie57
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by Dottie57 »

I just had an offer accepted. Yea!!

The property is in condominium building that I want to live in. About 50% bigger than current home. Nice amenities.

Hate how much prices have changed. If I am able to live there for 20 years it will be well worth the cost. Current home should pay for 2/3 of cost.
LittleMaggieMae
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by LittleMaggieMae »

Could part of the "housing shortage" be because of people like me who own more than just a primary home - and the other properties aren't "limited use vacation homes" - but rather properties that use to be someone else's primary home - but are now rentals?

If the real estate crash (2008 depending on where you located) hadn't happened - I'd never have become a landlord.

I seem to know quite a few family, friends, acquaintances who have multiple properties because of the housing crash --generally used as rentals - there's a couple of "second homes" in that mix that are not rented out when "snowbird" owner isn't there (it's usually used by family or close friends).
manatee2005
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Austin real estate seems to be slowing down

Post by manatee2005 »

[Thread merged into here --admin LadyGeek]

My boots on the ground are reporting that Austin real estate is slowing down. Has anyone seen the same thing? Is it mainly because prices went up 40% in a year and people have had enough?
Normchad
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Re: Austin real estate seems to be slowing down

Post by Normchad »

I’m not in Austin, but it feels like it is cooling down here in Northern Virginia. My neighbor had no problem selling their house in 1 day, but it didn’t get a bazillion silly offers.

I’ve been looking at homes in the Dallas area. It seems to be cooling down there as well. Many homes we have seen in the past month or two are back on the market, or have had the price reduced.

There is a long thread recently from a seller in the Dallas area that seems to corroborate this.
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sunny_socal
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Re: Austin real estate seems to be slowing down

Post by sunny_socal »

Yes, I think this is true. In our neighborhood houses 'normally' have been going for 750-800k. In May they peaked at 1-1.2M. A neighbor listed his home for 850k, was hoping for $1M. Got an offer for his asking price but decided to pull the plug since that was his only offer.
CaptainSaver
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Re: Austin real estate seems to be slowing down

Post by CaptainSaver »

Does anyone have a source to see what homes in Austin have recently sold for? Zillow and Redfin don't seem to have it, they just show which homes have recently sold.

I have seen listings go up for over $1 million and be gone within a few days, wondering if those actually got what they were looking for.

Without that data it is hard to say if it is slowing down or not.

All I have found is this report from the Austin Board of Realtors:
https://www.abor.com/june-2021-central- ... ket-report

Several interesting data points listed in there, here is one quote which addresses velocity of the market in June:

"More homes are also being listed across the MSA, as new listings increased 23.8% to 5,170 listings in June 2021, while active listings dropped 56.3% to 2,265 listings. Homes spent an average of 13 days on market compared to 46 days for June 2020 indicating that as new homes are listed, they are quickly going under contract."

Another quote pertaining to City of Austin:
"This June, there were 1,374 home sales, up 16.9% year over year, setting a record for any June on record. At the same time, sales dollar volume increased 63.8% to $969,626,439, while the median price jumped 42% to $575,000––an all-time record for the city of Austin. During the same period, new listings increased 15.2% to 1,672 listings; active listings tumbled 46.8% to 801 listings; and pending sales decreased 2.6% to 1,385 sales. Housing inventory decreased 0.8 months to 0.7 months of inventory."
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cowdogman
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Re: Austin real estate seems to be slowing down

Post by cowdogman »

My wife and have been looking for a retirement home in various places in WA state and we gave up a couple months ago because of (1) the lack of attractive properties and (2) ridiculous prices for substandard properties (e.g., properties that had a "Zestimate" of $200,000 a year ago listed for $500,000). We don't plan to move for at least a year (if ever) but we thought we would start looking in case something really attractive came up. In any case, I have still have Zillow searches going and I have definitely noticed fewer "ridiculous" listings--tho still not much for sale.

Closer to home (literally), one of our neighbors listed their house a couple months ago for over $5M and then quickly dropped it to slightly under $5M and it went into contract immediately. Pre-COVID I would have guessed a value for that house, at the top end, of $3.5M (plus it is not a family friendly house). The sale is still pending (according to Zillow). If it falls thru, that will be a definite sign to me that things are returning to normal.
mkc
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Re: Austin real estate seems to be slowing down

Post by mkc »

CaptainSaver wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 11:18 am Does anyone have a source to see what homes in Austin have recently sold for? Zillow and Redfin don't seem to have it, they just show which homes have recently sold.
That's because it's not required to disclose the selling price in Texas (it's an optional form), and most don't.

You can sometimes find info via the county appraisal district website - I know some of the appraisal districts in NTX provide the "comps" used for annual property assessments and those will have the real estate transaction details of any that have been disclosed. It comes in handy for the annual "property assessment protest" season.
THY4373
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Re: Austin real estate seems to be slowing down

Post by THY4373 »

Not Austin but in Central VA the market seems to have cooled some. Haven't noticed much drop in prices yet but supply is up for sure from a few months ago.
interwebopinion
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Re: Austin real estate seems to be slowing down

Post by interwebopinion »

I can confirm this is happening in my Bay Area neighborhood as well.

Things were on fire just a few weeks back, and my neighbor was excitedly texting me at all hours about their zestimate and how much their equity had gone up. The texts have slowed to a trickle. The last one was ripping on a flaky buyer who bid on a house down the street and then backed out.
averagelonghorn
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Re: Austin real estate seems to be slowing down

Post by averagelonghorn »

Just my own sense of the market. Austin has been a seller's market for many years; has been an extreme sellers market over the last year or so. I guess it depends on what you mean by slowing down; but I HAVE seen a few more houses on the market for longer than a couple of months ago (as in not everything is single digit days on market), and I HAVE seen a tiny bit more inventory available, but as someone noted from most recent ABOR market report, it's still below 1 month's inventory overall. I do think most that are on market for longer time lately are stretching a little much on asking price after hearing that everything's selling 100k above list (some have, some haven't) or they know they're high and just testing the market. (I know one neighbor of mine is in that testing the market mode; he doesn't really want to sell.)

Oh and yea, you're not going to find sold prices on Zillow, etc; as Texas is a non-disclosure state. Only time it makes any sense to disclose is if your Property Tax assessment is higher than your purchase price, and then it's just used by County Appraisal District to set property tax valuation.
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quantAndHold
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Re: Austin real estate seems to be slowing down

Post by quantAndHold »

Can confirm, San Diego, too. A bit more inventory, things staying on the market for a week or two instead of a day, and a nonzero number of places coming on the market and then almost immediately dropping the price.

Also, horror of horrors, the ZEstimate on my house dropped by $48k in the last 30 days…
Cali4en
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Re: Austin real estate seems to be slowing down

Post by Cali4en »

CaptainSaver wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 11:18 am Does anyone have a source to see what homes in Austin have recently sold for? Zillow and Redfin don't seem to have it, they just show which homes have recently sold.
If you have a Redfin sign in then you can see sold prices for some properties if you look at the neighborhood level. There is a selection for "See Market Insights" and inside that there is a tab for recent home sales that shows both the list and sale prices. They even calculate the percentage over/under between list and sale. I have no idea where they get their data from though since Texas is a non-disclosure state. Not sure if it is agents putting it in or Redfin is sourcing it somewhere else. In our neighborhood they have the sale prices listed for what looks like about 60-70 percent of recent sales.

I just went and looked in my neighborhood, which is in the Austin metro. There are three sales listed with sale prices in the last week in our neighborhood. They went for 14%, 22%, and 38% over list price, respectively.
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Re: Austin real estate seems to be slowing down

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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by LadyGeek »

Requested by a member (with an explanation why), manatee2005's thread has been unlocked and merged into the ongoing discussion.

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rage_phish
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by rage_phish »

We bought in an east bay suburb inn April. In june I thought the market was softening here. And was a little sad we may have bought at the top…

But in the last month 5 houses have sold in just our little neighborhood. All for about $150-$200 more per square ft than we paid a month prior (exact same floor plan and level of updated)

Houses are still going pending here within a week and going for $150k+ over asking

Curious what happens from here
PowderDay9
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by PowderDay9 »

Isn't some of this just the annual seasonality of the real estate market? Spring and early summer always have a lot of action, partially due to families wanting to move between school years. Things usually slow down in late summer and fall.
mikejuss
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by mikejuss »

Jaylat wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 12:02 pm Our neighbors, a nice older Korean couple, are putting their North San Diego County house up for sale for $2.08 million (distant sea view, 5 bedrooms, 3600sf). They probably paid $500,000 20 years ago. They run two dry cleaning stores here and are very hardworking, frugal people.

They are moving to LA and bought a similar size house in Brentwood for $4 million. Actually, their son, a hedge fund owner, bought it for them. He paid $20 million in taxes alone last year, and bought his Beverly Hills place for $15 million, paying cash. He wants his parents nearby and money is no object.

Even though they got the house for free, their RE taxes will jump from well under $10,000 to over $40,000 a year.
Wow--how do you know all of this about your neighbors?
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by Flyer24 »

An off-topic comment about race has been deleted.
phxjcc
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by phxjcc »

3/3.5 2800 sq ft $3.4 mil

Sold before it hit MLS

Multiple offers, don't know the settlement price, yet.

$1 mil in 2014
$2.6 in 2016
stoptothink
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by stoptothink »

We've had two hand-written notes placed on our door this week from "real estate" investors, both stating they are interested in buying our townhome in cash for the zillow estimate. Bought for $189k in January 2016, current zillow estimate is $374k. Wife and I (only half-jokingly) asked ourselves what our threshold is for selling and moving in with my parents until things calm down. We have two friends who have done this in the last few months.
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by mikejuss »

stoptothink wrote: Thu Jul 22, 2021 8:09 am We've had two hand-written notes placed on our door this week from "real estate" investors, both stating they are interested in buying our townhome in cash for the zillow estimate. Bought for $189k in January 2016, current zillow estimate is $374k. Wife and I (only half-jokingly) asked ourselves what our threshold is for selling and moving in with my parents until things calm down. We have two friends who have done this in the last few months.
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unclescrooge
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by unclescrooge »

stoptothink wrote: Thu Jul 22, 2021 8:09 am We've had two hand-written notes placed on our door this week from "real estate" investors, both stating they are interested in buying our townhome in cash for the zillow estimate. Bought for $189k in January 2016, current zillow estimate is $374k. Wife and I (only half-jokingly) asked ourselves what our threshold is for selling and moving in with my parents until things calm down. We have two friends who have done this in the last few months.
I had a coworker who did this in the last cycle in SoCal. Unfortunately he sold in 2003.

I had another coworker who did this in 2017 in NorCal. I strongly hinted against doing so, but she and her husband went ahead anyway.

Of course, I did so myself in 2006 but when the bank lends you 40x your income to speculate in real estate you know it's going to end badly.
CaptainSaver
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Re: Austin real estate seems to be slowing down

Post by CaptainSaver »

mkc wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 11:37 am
CaptainSaver wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 11:18 am Does anyone have a source to see what homes in Austin have recently sold for? Zillow and Redfin don't seem to have it, they just show which homes have recently sold.
That's because it's not required to disclose the selling price in Texas (it's an optional form), and most don't.

You can sometimes find info via the county appraisal district website - I know some of the appraisal districts in NTX provide the "comps" used for annual property assessments and those will have the real estate transaction details of any that have been disclosed. It comes in handy for the annual "property assessment protest" season.

Interesting... I am thinking that the real estate associations are keeping it in house. I know that when you ask an agent for recent sale comps, they are able to find them very quickly. It doesn't seem like the public has access to the same data in these cities. I tried the Redfin technique another user mentioned, but the information that showed up there was very limited. If anyone knows a way to get the same data on recent sales RE agents have access to in Texas please share.
shangrila
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by shangrila »

more houses on the market and or for sale signs in NH too-- inventory still low though. kicking myself for not purchasing a property on the coast of Maine before this bubble /dream of mine.
JC Denton
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by JC Denton »

Yeah, I was going to buy and then I realized condos now cost as much as houses. I’ve given up on owning a home or condo, it’s just too risky.
Atilla
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by Atilla »

Here's what's happening in our little corner of the world:

We have a shared driveway with 4 other identical stand-alone condos. We are 5 houses on a lot owned in common, so the "comp" when someone sells is accurate.

The most recent sale was 3 years ago for $235,000. Same house goes back on the market on a Thursday in May for $270,000 asking price. By Saturday morning they are not showing the place any more.

Sold for $305,000 in under 48 hours, cash deal, sight unseen by a retiree from Kentucky.

And next year our property taxes will go up another $1,540.00 a year once the assessor catches up with the new selling price.

Every time a neighbor sells, it costs the rest of us big bucks. Feh.
GmanJeff
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Re: Tales from this insane real estate market

Post by GmanJeff »

A recent phenomenon I encountered at a Toll Bros. development is the solicitation of bids for lot premiums above and beyond the purchase price of the house itself. That is, while the price of the house is fixed, potential buyers are required to offer binding bids for the lot in which they are interested, with no way to know whether anyone else is bidding on the same lot or what any such bids might be. Obviously, if nobody else bids, the potential buyer will be bidding against themselves, and if there are other bids the potential exists to come in too low and to lose the opportunity to buy the house and lot. Toll Bros. sets a starting $ amount for bidding, which begins once a lot is released (they release just one or two at a time) and the sky is the limit.

Have others encountered this at other developments and/or have suggestions for how to best address this short of simply declining to play the game and opting to buy from a different builder?
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