Housing Market hitting bottom still!!!????????? (Dallas, Plano: real estate market, good credit, loans)

[jim42]

Existing housing is not where the deals are now. Unless you can pick up a solid forclosure. (risky business). Your best buys will come from builders in this type of market.

At least you will be pretty sure no one else in the neighborhood got in recently for much less than you will be paying. Also as the economy gets better and raw material prices go up builder prices will follow giving you a nice profit. Having said this you will need to stay in any home you buy for at least 5 years in a normal economy to realize any profit at all. You have your closing cost to pay and your realestate fees when you sell. Approx 9%. any appreciation after that is yours.

Good luck.

P.S. don't let the builder sell you a house on a main street of his subdivision.

[Lakewooder]

Your cheapest buy may be from a desperate builder but how much will it cost you in the long run?

[momof2dfw]

Originally Posted by Lakewooder

Your cheapest buy may be from a desperate builder but how much will it cost you in the long run?

True. And if your one of the nomad groups that has to move every few years when it comes time to sell that house you bought from a "desperate builder" you yourself become the "desperate seller". Also don't want to buy in an area flooded w/ "desperate sellers" as it can really bring an area down.

[Lakewooder]

Also good luck trying to get problems corrected when the builder shuts down or changes names.

[lh_newbie]

What if you want to move into an existing area? No builders to buy from for the most part. Seems like your info is more for the not-yet-built-out areas.

[hamiltonpl]

Originally Posted by CTR36

Well as the sellers of a house (we closed last week) it Is a buyer's market! We didn't get that much for our house and everyone says we were lucky to sell it since there ARE so MANY homes just like ours in McKinney selling for even less! I tell you buying and selling a home in Texas is a ripoff, we came away with nothing!! We made nothing on the house and we owned it for 8 years. If I had known that when I bought it I would have saved my $16K down payment and would have a hefty chunk of change by now. I am leasing a home now that is valued at $250K for only $1200 a month. I think I will be a renter for many, many years!! This whole housing market is ridiculous.

This is clearly a result of buying in McKinney. With all the empty land in McKinney, and brand-new inventory, houses will not have the appreciation of neighborhoods south of 635. It is supply and demand.

My neighborhood in Lakewood has not had any downturn in home prices. In fact, values and sales have been steadily on the rise in my immediate neighborhood. Houses are about 20-25% higher this year compared to last year at this time. Profit can be made. You just need to buy in the right area.

[Lakewooder]

I believe I read that there are 10,000 empty homes sitting on the market in new-build neighborhoods. Add to that the high number of foreclosures.

Shades of the 'see-through subdivisions' I saw in Houston after the oil bust.

[lh_newbie]

16 months ago, we paid $98/ft in Lake Highlands. Homes have been selling for $120-125/ft lately. Heck, there's even one home just south of us that was just put on the market for $140/ft (by the pictures, it's in VERY good shape - lots of updates). Built out areas - and far from open land - will certainly not have to compete with new construction like areas with lots of land and will fare better in such environments.

[CTR36]

Yeah. But I refuse to live in Dallas. I hate all that traffic. I work out in the rural areas and it is probably where we will be building in the future. I am planning to rent for the next 3 years or so while we decide on what part we want to buy land in. We are thinking Farmersville

We like living in a smaller town, albeit, McKinney is becoming a big town quickly. We still love McKinney though and we rarely venture south of Richardson.

We just don't like the big city life.

And after doing the math we did make a profit on our home, just not the one we were expecting. But we were lucky to sell our house in only 60 days. Not bad

[hamiltonpl]

Originally Posted by CTR36

Yeah. But I refuse to live in Dallas. I hate all that traffic. I work out in the rural areas and it is probably where we will be building in the future. I am planning to rent for the next 3 years or so while we decide on what part we want to buy land in. We are thinking Farmersville

We like living in a smaller town, albeit, McKinney is becoming a big town quickly. We still love McKinney though and we rarely venture south of Richardson.

We just don't like the big city life.

And after doing the math we did make a profit on our home, just not the one we were expecting. But we were lucky to sell our house in only 60 days. Not bad

You are assuming that if you lived in Dallas, you'd have to fight traffic. I never have to get on a highway to commute from my suburban neighborhood in Dallas to downtown. It takes 10-15 minutes.

Those people fighting traffic in the big cities are the same people living out in those "rural areas."

In my neighborhood, I can walk to the lake or ride my bike around it. There are hundreds of acres of greenspace all around me in White Rock Lake Park. My neighbors know me, and I know them. Living in my neighborhood has all of the good attributes of living in a small town, as well as all the amenities and wealth of a big city. But stay in McKinney and hate life. That's cool too.