In Defense of Saturnfan (affordable housing in the Triangle) (Raleigh: 2015, renters)
Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, CaryThe Triangle Area
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I may be reading the article incorrectly, but as soon as I saw it claimed "the number of available homes priced under $200,000 has been cut in half to just 463 in the past two years", I knew something was fishy.
If they want to write an article, please spend more time on fact-checking than merely relating the "sad tale" of someone whose expectations were never realistic.
There are 1600 single family detached homes for sale this minute in the Triangle of $200K or less. This year, there's another 5400 that have sold or are under contract. I don't think 1200 homes read the article and threw their house on the market.
Since Bracken has plenty of agents that will do his MLS research for him, I wish he had asked. He would have found out that exactly 9 homes under $150K sold on MLS within 2 miles of the FON/540 intersection 3 years ago.
No idea what number he was looking at when he wrote that. The site he refers to in the article has market data summarized in monthly reports under the Market Trends section.
No idea what number he was looking at when he wrote that. The site he refers to in the article has market data summarized in monthly reports under the Market Trends section.
Though I agree it was a misleading way to lay out the numbers; I'm pretty sure they were referring to North Raleigh; not the whole Triangle area, and for single-family homes only; not including conods/townhomes. A quick search of MLS for Raleigh with single-family homes priced $200k and lower shows 584 listings. When you search for "North Raleigh" (which usually includes areas most people would consider "East Raleigh")....the number is 63 single family homes priced under 200k.
Playing with numbers and search criteria a little more and a couple other interesting stats.
Total number of SFH in Wake County priced 200k and under- 1148
Total number of SFH in Wake County priced 400k and over- 2025
Total number of SFH in Wake County priced 500k and over- 1210
I do think this shows a trend of Wake becoming more of a high-end housing market with fewer and fewer "starter homes" overall. It's not necessarily a good or bad thing; but while I think the examples given in the article are for sensationalism purposes (much like the comments of the poser whose name appears in the title of this thread; which I'm not sure is allowed in TOS)....they do both have a valid point. A first-time homebuyer has far fewer options in Wake County today than they did not too long ago. This is obviously not something that is exclusive to this region but it is happening and it is a relatively recent phenomenon.
Last edited by TarHeelNick; 04-26-2015 at 06:40 PM..
How anyone can stay in a job that doesn't give them an annual raise to stay
above inflation, then have the nerve to sit there and complain about income
levels not keeping up, is beyond me. People need to understand if your salary
is remaining flat while the rest of the world is responding to inflation, it's
your own fault. Get off your butts and either march into your bosses office and
explain why it's unreasonable to expect you to fall behind each year, or simply
move on to another job without even telling them why. If lacking skills or
confidence to do that, it's NOT the housing markets problem.
I may be reading the article incorrectly, but as soon as I saw it claimed "the number of available homes priced under $200,000 has been cut in half to just 463 in the past two years", I knew something was fishy.
If they want to write an article, please spend more time on fact-checking than merely relating the "sad tale" of someone whose expectations were never realistic.
There are 1600 single family detached homes for sale this minute in the Triangle of $200K or less. This year, there's another 5400 that have sold or are under contract. I don't think 1200 homes read the article and threw their house on the market.
Since Bracken has plenty of agents that will do his MLS research for him, I wish he had asked. He would have found out that exactly 9 homes under $150K sold on MLS within 2 miles of the FON/540 intersection 3 years ago.
Though I agree it was a misleading way to lay out the numbers; I'm pretty sure they were referring to North Raleigh; not the whole Triangle area, and for single-family homes only; not including conods/townhomes. A quick search of MLS for Raleigh with single-family homes priced $200k and lower shows 584 listings. When you search for "North Raleigh" (which usually includes areas most people would consider "East Raleigh")....the number is 63 single family homes priced under 200k.
Playing with numbers and search criteria a little more and a couple other interesting stats.
Total number of SFH in Wake County priced 200k and under- 1148
Total number of SFH in Wake County priced 400k and over- 2025
Total number of SFH in Wake County priced 500k and over- 1210
I do think this shows a trend of Wake becoming more of a high-end housing market with fewer and fewer "starter homes" overall. It's not necessarily a good or bad thing; but while I think the examples given in the article are for sensationalism purposes (much like the comments of the poser whose name appears in the title of this thread; which I'm not sure is allowed in TOS)....they do both have a valid point. A first-time homebuyer has far fewer options in Wake County today than they did not too long ago. This is obviously not something that is exclusive to this region but it is happening and it is a relatively recent phenomenon.
I wasn't aware that you were a Realtor, with access to the MLS. Regardless, the number of homes that are active for sale is barely an indicator at all. And one can never take a moment in time, and call it a trend.
Homes under $200K are selling at a 48 day average. There are only 445 homes available for sale at this moment in Wake County, but over the last 12 months, 4500 have sold.
Homes above 400K are selling in 84 days on average. There are 1200+ homes available for sale right now. 2,820 have sold over the last 12 months. 60% more homes < 200K have sold than > 200K. This is why the average price is in the low 200's.
I wasn't aware that you were a Realtor, with access to the MLS. Regardless, the number of homes that are active for sale is barely an indicator at all. And one can never take a moment in time, and call it a trend.
Homes under $200K are selling at a 48 day average. There are only 445 homes available for sale at this moment in Wake County, but over the last 12 months, 4500 have sold.
Homes above 400K are selling in 84 days on average. There are 1200+ homes available for sale right now. 2,820 have sold over the last 12 months. 60% more homes < 200K have sold than > 200K. This is why the average price is in the low 200's.
I am not a realtor (at least not yet); you do not have to be a realtor to search active listings in the triangle area or to search recent sales. My realtor (I am currently searching for a home to purchase when my lease runs out this summer; she is also a family friend) let me know that off that bat and it has made it much easier for me to access listings based on my specific criteria much faster; and she then arranges the showings. MLS not only feeds into national databases like Zillow, Redfin, and Realtor.com but also the much more user-friendly and local FMrealty.com. I'm sure you know all of this.
FWIW my father is also a custom builder in the luxury market of North Raleigh and has been for over 20 years (has built many of the homes in neighborhoods like Devon & Bay Leaf Farms) so I have a little more insight than your condescending tone implies you believe.
Are you honestly going to suggest that the real estate market in Wake County does not have fewer starter homes now than it did before the housing bubble? I don't think a tenured realtor in this area could say that in good conscience.
Again; it's not necessarily a "bad" thing that Wake as more high-end homes than "starter" homes now....but it is a reality. Hyperbolized by N&O or not....it's a trend; not one unique to this area at all but most definitely present here.
Giggle to yourself as you feel the need, but you'd be dead wrong, I've been in the same rat race as everyone else my entire career. And more than once I've had to leave a job and coworkers I liked (even cities I liked) to move on to greener pastures in order not not allow my career to take an injury. One of the side effects of a free market economy. Employers won't pay more unless they HAVE to. They sometimes don't know they have to until they feel the pains of your departure.
It's amazing how quickly they can go from "sorry, no raises for anyone this year" to "well wait let me see what I can do first, why didn't you give me a chance to counter offer before you accepted the new position?". Hypocrites.
Yeah well a lot of the offshoring work has not worked out well in many industries. Yes everyone's job is replaceable, ultimately, but there is a COST involved in replacing an entrenched employee, and a corporation that is well run realizes that this cost is almost always more than 2.75% a year. Of course they are going to try to take advantage of the situation as much as possible, including every possible tactic for not giving raises until they have to.
It's when they start feeling the true cost of attrition, and anyone that denies that cost doesn't know the FIRST THING about business, that they will do something to correct it and start paying appropriate COL adjustments annually.
I'm no spring chicken, but I keep my skills marketable, and that is all that is needed. I've never been in a position to start making ridiculous demands (as a professional I wouldn't allow myself to), and to be sure some years the economy has been tougher on my career than others, but I've never allowed my salary to decline or stagnate, and this is one reason I am on track for a comfortable retirement in another ten years or so.
It's unfortunate that some don't know how to play the "career" game as well as others, but that's another topic, let's try not to hijack this thread with something other than local housing values.
Real estate has always been worth exactly one thing. It is worth what people are willing to pay for it. Move away for 3 years and being shocked about rising prices is the same as passing up cheap gas on the highway and coming back tomorrow to find out it's gone up 10 cents. Who's fault is that? Are you entitled to that price from yesterday? You just couldn't believe that would happen? You pay the price of the day, same in real estate. Not complicated, plus there's Google so there's no excuses or crying that you didn't know or have the ability to find more information.
As far as the "career" game is concerned well, successful people advance their own careers. Most often, through networks they've built and relationships with people they know that have been impressed by their performance. If you want to have a better career, you need to drive that. If you want to own a home in a certain location with certain amenities or features, you need to drive that too and not blame anyone other than yourself because of your own failure to secure good intel first or inability to afford. Having a good paying job is not a right and neither is owning a home.
I do indeed know the feeds, and I know who's allowed to have direct access to the MLS. A few Realtors have lost their privileges because they've either promised or provided MLS access to non-Realtors. That's all. A request for accuracy. I'm a BIG proponent of all consumers using web portals that have fully-accurate info every 15 minutes.
I didn't make any suggestion regarding the number of available starter homes, either. What I suggested is that to look at the number for sale at a particular moment is not a valid comparison, given the current market conditions. In a vacuum, if a type of home sells twice as fast as another (regardless of price/equity/profit), then wouldn't you expect to see many fewer for sale? The others would be under contract/sold.
As soon as I read this article this morning,I thought of saturnfan. Home/rent prices look like they're getting out of hand fast.
I own my home,but we all will be effected by this sooner or later. I'm sure the city tax collectors are just licking their chops. Waiting for the next round of tax revaluation.
Looks like Youngsville,Louisburg,Angier,and Dunn/Benson are going to get very popular very soon.
I can't wait to see the results of the next Wake county real estate appraisal cycle with regards to my home's tax value . For those who don't know, the next year for the appraisal is 2016. In fact, if you look on the real estate web site they have a message notifying the user that they will be starting the appraisal in December of this year.
If you want to have a better career, you need to drive that.
I kind of respectfully disagree with you on that. Only because I know several people, "who played by the rules "and still never landed the career that they wanted. Yes, they played the networking game with co-workers in their respected field. I know someone who worked part time for 4 yrs. and because he desperately wanted to be full time at his workplace however always got passed up for someone who they hired off the street. Driving your career doesn't always work out the way some people planned.
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. For those who don't know, the next year for the appraisal is 2016. In fact, if you look on the real estate web site they have a message notifying the user that they will be starting the appraisal in December of this year.
