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Where are you at exactly downtown? I am in the Forest Hills area, and I bought our place for $350,000 2 years ago, have put about $150,000 into it, and it should appraise somewhere between $600,000-$700,000 (depends on the day and appraiser sadly enough).
I made a much less savvy financial decision. I bought a house in a perfect spot in Old West Durham 12 years ago for $150K, and have proceeded to sink around $250K in to home additions and renovations. The house still appraises for more than we put into it, but we would probably make more improvements if the appraisals came in higher. I know that everybody thinks their house should be worth more, but there are bidding wars whenever houses come on the market around here.
In the grand scheme of things, I believe that many young families with six-figure incomes want to settle down near downtown Durham rather than suburbs, and are willing to spend over $500K on moderately-sized homes. In some respects, it's good that this market isn't being tapped, because you'd see a lot more tear-down/rebuild projects if the true market forces were allowed to play out.
Here's a question for all the Realtors and brokers on this board:
How do you find a broker who does broker price opinions or comparative market analyses, on a paid/fee for service basis?
We have to do (still more) renovation to our house this summer, but before nailing down the to-do list, we want to get a valuation on the house to make sure we don't go too far in over-investing in the home. It's also not worth it to us to get a "full" appraiser report.
Why? When buying a home you should always buy where you want to live. Buying with the hope of making money is a fools game unless you have the resources and skills to flip (i.e. you're in the construction industry). Sure, some folks get lucky, but most of the time when a specific area spikes more than the areas around it, either it will crash hard or the areas around it will catch up soon after.
Also basing values on bank appraisals is scary. Banks like loaning people money and have a curious habit making sure the appraisal meets the number the buyer wants to pay. It's gotten harder now for people to just give up and run away from their homes and banks know it. Just because a home appraises for a given value today doesn't mean that the market realities won't say it can only sell for 80% of that in five years.
Beware area-specific property spikes. Whatever is driving the prices up can change in a new york minute with some sort of event like 9/11 occurring again and resulting economic downturn.
Yeah but I did want to live there and was so freaked out by the first time homebuying process that I ended up going with a familiar house in a familiar neighborhood - it's fine, but I would have been very happy downtown.
I know! I am kicking myself for not buying in three years ago!
Three years from now, everyone will be kicking themselves for not buying in neighborhoods just east of DT Raleigh proper.
It's all about timing and not being fearless.
Yeah but I did want to live there and was so freaked out by the first time homebuying process that I ended up going with a familiar house in a familiar neighborhood - it's fine, but I would have been very happy downtown.
Yeah but the same kind of thing happened in DT Raleigh, then everyone who moved there started complaining about the noise and rapid growth.
And thank god for that. He waited until about five years after everyone that moved there was in an uproar to admit he wanted to move out. But then again, he had to.
Everyone else was a lot faster to point out the issue of downtown noise. Research it, you'll see I'm right.
Downtown Durham has far more real estate challenges in terms of preventing bubbles from popping than the downtown of any capital city every will.
I fear we could have a huge contraction also. Any minute a meteor could strike the center of downtown Raleigh, Durham or maybe RTP. In the aftermath, all companies with jobs would move to other areas that were not destroyed.
I fear we could have a huge contraction also. Any minute a meteor could strike the center of downtown Raleigh, Durham or maybe RTP. In the aftermath, all companies with jobs would move to other areas that were not destroyed.
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