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Seriously...is there a "let's try to undermine Charlotte" club out there? Do folks really have nothing better to do than stir up doom and gloom thoughts? Is their life that unfulfilled that they feel the need to spread panic into other sheep who would believe their negative hype? It's sad really to see folks so hell-bent on trying to bring down a region. Jealousy really is ugly.
I thought these sorts of posts were taking a break for a little while. Thanks for putting another quarter in the machine. It was getting too peaceful around here...we needed some annoyance.
Why would anyone be jealous of someone whose primary asset is losing a lot of value right now?
Perhaps underwater homeowners and those with quickly depreciating home equity are jealous of the great deals homebuyers are going to get, and the even better ones they'll get 1-3 years from now?
Wow. How many Realtors have posted in this thread? 20? If you're a realtor or a mortgage broker or a banker, please write that before you post - obviously that means that you are subject to a huge bias. Reminds me of a quote:
"It's impossible to get a man to believe something when his job depends on him not believing it."
The data are what they are, and they are as clear as day.
5-7 months ago I posted but I couldn't remember my login. The Graphs I posted then will look just like the one I posted in this thread.
1st BIG misconception - a house is a horrible investment. Historically, houses yield, maybe, 1-2%.
Houses are money pits - insurance, taxes, fix up, improvements, and on and on.
The best reason to buy a house is because you want to own the land and house and have complete control over them.
With regard to where we are now, I'm not sure why a simple line graph has various posters arguing that the data or chart are misleading.
As noted already, the data comes from Realtors.
Folks, it's a simple line graph showing average sales price. What the graph shows is that the average sales price has fallen off dramatically in the last 5 months and is now below a several year minimum.
What's arguable about that? Nothing.
You can try to argue that prices are doing great in some subcomponent. OK.
Show me.
If you are going to try to argue that some portion of Charlotte is not heading down, then simply post the data for everyone to see. Like I did.
"All boats fall with the sinking tide."
The other trend line is asking price at time of new listing.
Once again, I'm not sure how the data could be simpler or more easily understood.
The line shows that average asking price has been going up for quite some time, and is hugely above the average sales price.
Clearly, that's a huge problem. You can offer whatever interpretation you want. I offered mine.
Home prices are going to continue to fall.
I am not a Realtor. I'm not involved in real estate. I will not make a dime whether you buy or not.
But here's my advice:
If you're thinking about buying a home in Charlotte (or virtually anywhere else in America), wait a year, minimum, and, better yet, wait at least 3 years.
Prices will continue to fall. Unemployment is skyrocketing, the depression is worsening, and the American consumer is tapped out. If you rent for 2 years and the market falls 20%, then you just saved 40,000 dollars on the purchase of a 200,000 home. Figure, with the interest you pay, you can save almost 100,000 by simply waiting 2 years.
Prices will continue to fall. Hard.
I'll post again over the coming months (saving the log on this time!!) to update my chart.
No, I've never been banned. I don't get personal. People don't like the data, they can insult me all they want.
But the data are very easy to understand and very clear.
Let's be objective here..
1. Housing is a must for everyone, either buy or rent.
2. When you rent, you make someone else rich since you pay someone else's mortgage.
3. Buying a home is a very personal decision, you can't base only on market conditions.
4. We can't lump all Charlotte in one big graph, you can't even break it down by zip code, since there are pockets withing the same zip code.
5. It's great that some people don't want to buy and prefer to rent, this will help the people who are ready to invest in the real estate market. just tell me which condo you want to rent and I will buy it for you.
6. If real estate is such a bad thing, you won't find a place to rent and we all be living in caves.
7. Yes, we are in a bad time now, but it's good to get in when it's still low enough and interest rates are reasonable.
8. I just got in escrow yesterday on a nice townhouse and getting ready to buy another one to rent it, so renters, please contact me.
Because so many people bought recently, of course you are going to have a decline because not everyone moves every 3 years. It used to be that prices were more stable and there wasn't a rush to buy. But since prices skyrocketed there was a rush to go buy and now those people don't feel like moving so soon afterwards. This can also have an effect. The prices won't move as quickly as gas or food prices.
And if you have alot of money in cash you can make money in this economy. Not now, but when it picks up. When everyone else is losing money, someone else is capitalizing on their misfortune. Buy Low, Sell High
...and all this proves what? And who cares? Do you really think you're playing Batman and defending the hoards of poor innocent soles that you think are about to make a bad move to what you think is a wretched hole of a city? Seriously...what is going to come of the crappy picture you paint of your own town? There's a difference between just simply giving folks an idea of how an area really is and flat out running an anti-Charlotte campaign. As the old cliche' goes, if it's so bad, get out.
Like I said, it must suck to have a life that's so wrapped up in every negative detail that the only things that come out of your mouth are negative. You've got your opinions on the area, and you certainly think you have all kinds of fancy equations and reports to back it up. As for me, I've got a good job that's not based on or related to any sort of greed industry (so, knock on wood, it's safe for now). I've got a house that I was more than happy to "sink" the money into and invest in with a commitment for the next 10+ years. Every weekend I can think up new things I can do with my house, or have friends over and entertain, maybe paint a bedroom to give it a new look. I don't log on to the BS websites out there and get someone else's opinion of what it's worth...it means nothing to me. I've got a place for my family to live and life is relatively good despite some other's misfortune's come lately. While the graphs in my head aren't soaring vertical with optimism and rosey outlook, they're not bouncing off the bottom of the x-axis.
I would like to congratulate yet another trolling useless thread for catching me by the foot with it's snare. Good thing for me I'm content with my house, it's perceived value (to me), the outlook for my neighborhood, and my city...so I can shut the door on crap propaganda like this and not look back. Good luck.
Should I tell my wife that we didn't get the existing home or new lot she really, really loved because I thought the market would go down another 6%? She'd rather pay an extra 10k perhaps and get her first choice of home. What about interest rates, can you guarantee that they will be the same or lower in two years, even as the government keeps issuing more debt?
At this point in the cycle, I think it might be smarter to advise people to proceed with caution but to proceed never the less. Look at the inventory and make sure you're totally in love with your house of choice. Make sure your income is pretty secure and that you won't have to move anytime soon. Make sure your financing won't fall through. I agree that realtors always say it's a great time to buy, they have hurt a lot of people in the last five years with their ambition for commissions, if not dishonesty. On the other hand, at some point, it's time to start shopping around for a good deal on a place you would love to call home for the next phase of your life.
That is exactly what I have been trying to convey. And your point about interest rates is worth noting, as well.
Yes, the housing market is bad and probably getting worse, but I think we have figured out (sorry, I can't bear to read 4 pages of drivel. I did see that sullyman picked up pretty quickly on the problem with the graphed "statistics")
that graph does not mean that people are listing homes for $310,000 and then selling them for $190,00. At least I think it does not. More likely it tells you that higher priced homes are not selling, while lower priced homes are selling. You have to compare listing price vs selling price of the same homes, although I realize that is also a statistic that is messed with greatly, by relisting at ever lower prices and then calculating the percent of list using the last listing price.
Perhaps it will not be "GOOD TIME TO BY A HOME" from an investment point of view ever again. Personally, I prefer owning to renting. I like being able to do what I want inside my house, improving, painting, and I don't like the threat of having my home sold out from under me as happened to me in my first rental apartment many years ago. In fact, we have always considered ourselves consumers of housing, even when our housing choices turned out to be excellent investments.
It seems disingenuous to me (although I would prefer to just use the word "retarded") to post a misleading graph in an attempt to persuade people not to buy a home.
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I would like to congratulate yet another trolling useless thread for catching me by the foot with it's snare. Good thing for me I'm content with my house, it's perceived value (to me), the outlook for my neighborhood, and my city...so I can shut the door on crap propaganda like this and not look back. Good luck.
