Raleigh home values back to 1997 levels (house, place to live, zip codes)
Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, CaryThe Triangle Area
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Honestly...does anyone really believe that ONE COMMENT (whether it is positive or negative) would make a decision for someone to move or not to move to an area?!!
Fair enough. When I stated a home is a place to live, not an investment - I meant in the context of people buying as much (or more) house than they could/should afford thinking it's a good way to invest their money vs other investments. However it happened (I suspect some/many but not all realtors promoted the idea), homebuyers seemed to have a misguided expectation of homes as a superior investment for many years in the run up to the bubble. It never really was for all but a few zip codes.
Your post is more accurate, though universally held by most realtors - I don't pretend to know, you tell me? Thanks...
When I bought my house in 2008, my Realtor pointed to the neighborhood and how it had appreciated 5% in the first half of the year alone - apparently they have a special section in their Realtor web site that is able to calculate that. Now, why would the Realtor association have that info available if they didn't want their Realtors to use it? Makes you think. I had a top performing Realtor who was selling quite a bit of homes as well, not some nooby. She had been in Raleigh for decades.
I agree, Realtors do in fact push the "investment" bit, in addition they also like to tout the "tax write off" myth as well.
That being said, no one forces someone to buy a house. My homes value has dropped roughly 10% to around $165k +/- however we were lucky in that in the proceeding 6 months folks were paying close to $200k for homes in my neighborhood of similar sq ft. We dodged a bullet, and anyone buying now will definitely be making money or at least holding steady in the future. It's my personal belief that housing won't drop much more if any here in the area unless it's select neighborhoods. Actually, one downside to the down market is I notice folks in my neighborhood (me included) put less into their exterior and landscaping because they feel they are sinking money into a hole. This brings down the value even more.
When I bought my house in 2008, my Realtor pointed to the neighborhood and how it had appreciated 5% in the first half of the year alone - apparently they have a special section in their Realtor web site that is able to calculate that. Now, why would the Realtor association have that info available if they didn't want their Realtors to use it? Makes you think. I had a top performing Realtor who was selling quite a bit of homes as well, not some nooby. She had been in Raleigh for decades.
I agree, Realtors do in fact push the "investment" bit, in addition they also like to tout the "tax write off" myth as well.
That being said, no one forces someone to buy a house. My homes value has dropped roughly 10% to around $165k +/- however we were lucky in that in the proceeding 6 months folks were paying close to $200k for homes in my neighborhood of similar sq ft. We dodged a bullet, and anyone buying now will definitely be making money or at least holding steady in the future. It's my personal belief that housing won't drop much more if any here in the area unless it's select neighborhoods. Actually, one downside to the down market is I notice folks in my neighborhood (me included) put less into their exterior and landscaping because they feel they are sinking money into a hole. This brings down the value even more.
I don't know what ideas other Realtors "push" because I only know what I do and say to my clients.
How do YOU know what other Realtors do? How many Realtors have you worked with? Did they all "push" their ideas upon you? Why would you continue to work with anyone that has to push their ideas on you?
I have said this before but I'll repeat it...most buyers go looking for a Realtor because they have already decided to buy a home.
So, why would a Realtor need to "push" any ideas upon them?
Sometimes I wonder if people really understand what Realtors do?
The stock market has never had a 10-year period where it lost money. It is not for short term investing. While "owning" a home is usually better than renting, a house is a place to live, not an investment.
And this is not even based on factoring in inflation, as the OP is basing her analysis on. We should compare apples to apples. Factor in inflation and you will find even more losses.
I don't know what ideas other Realtors "push" because I only know what I do and say to my clients.
How do YOU know what other Realtors do? How many Realtors have you worked with? Did they all "push" their ideas upon you? Why would you continue to work with anyone that has to push their ideas on you?
I have said this before but I'll repeat it...most buyers go looking for a Realtor because they have already decided to buy a home.
So, why would a Realtor need to "push" any ideas upon them?
Sometimes I wonder if people really understand what Realtors do?
Vicki
Push may have been a bad word. Subliminally suggesting it might have been more specific.
I don't know why you are fighting this, the Realtor association has always said owning a home is an investment.
Hell this is from June of last year on the Realtors official site:
Do Realtors deserve the blame for this? Heck no. They were the salespeople. A good salesperson gives the client what they want. Blaming the Realtors is like blaming the CS rep at AT&T for your ridiculous bill when AT&T screwed it up. Like I said you can't force someone to buy something that they don't want to buy. I don't think the housing price increase had one single fault, it had many causes, and it sucks for everyone who was left holding the bag (me included). It will pass eventually though. According to Fox today 22.8% of residential mortgages are underwater, that is a pretty big %. Almost 1:4.
Heck look at the Retirement/Investment commercials out there. I think good Realtors do a great job of steering folks wanting to buy a house in the right direction, MUCH more so than "financial advisers". The great thing about a home is you can live in it!
Glad I paid Cash so I can make it up on the new house when we leave NC.
You are very fortunate that you choose to purchase in NC in 2006. Had you been in many other states you could knock another 80-100K off what you would fetch today.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NCfolks
Well let's see now. We can pay a mortgage for 15 years and be done with it, which is what we are doing, or we can pay rent forever. Hmmmmm.
We can put money in the bank at .75% interest and then lose on inflation or we can keep pace with inflation on average by owning our home. Hmmmmm.
We can invest in the stock market and hope we make money, but after the horrible 10 year rate of return and the complete unknown of future speculation.....Hmmmmmm.
Own your home or not? You make the call. We did and we are very happy.
You failed to include other crucial factors. 1) The pride of home ownership has a positive affect on ones well being (watching equity build-up adds to this feeling) and 2) The tax benefits including but not limited to the tax deductable mortgage interest payments, taxes, and other expenses.
Home ownership is absolutely an investment and a core holding in ones financial planning.
Maybe do a bit more Googling.. that article is about an opinion poll where Americans in general were asked questions, not realtors.
Yep I read it. Still very misleading. Not like you would expect them to publish a report saying don't buy a house.
All I can go on is my own experiences. In my experiences with Realtors in several cities across several states, every one touted the long term investment line and they touted the mortgage write off.
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