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I read this article and while I agree that Raleigh has been spared from much of the real estate meltdown, it's no seller's market either. We sold in Cary in May for about 2% less than we paid two years earlier. Our neighborhood of 90 homes has already had one foreclosure and currently has one short sale. Highcroft, which is a popular neighborhood in West Cary with an excellent elementary school in the neighborhood has about 12 months of inventory. While Raleigh may not have experienced a bubble, in the but for world where unqualified buyers didn't get loans, prices would not have gotten as high as they did.
I was also shocked that 60 percent of Preston residents belong to Prestonwood.
The article is long, but here is just a little snippet. I suggest that everyone read the entire article. It is amazing what the doom & gloom media would like us to think overall, but their stories are not the true reality of most of us. This article paints the more accurate picture here.
It is also interesting how the article states that people move here to get away from downtown living, where as in many other parts of the country, people are flocking to downtown to save on gas.
"North Carolina's capital seems to have gotten a free pass where the housing slump is concerned......Total sales in the first quarter of this year were the fifth highest on record......the real growth has come in suburbs like Cary,Morrisville & Apex.....The subdivision of Preston, where prices are up 3.5 percent over last year, reigns as the area’s übersuburb."
Last edited by Exit MA Now; 10-21-2008 at 03:32 PM..
The article is long, but here is just a little snippet. I suggest that everyone read the entire article. It is amazing what the doom & gloom media would like us to think overall, but their stories are not the true reality of most of us. This article paints the more accurate picture here.
It is also interesting how the article states that people move here to get away from downtown living, where as in many other parts of the country, people are flocking to downtown to save on gas.
"North Carolina's capital seems to have gotten a free pass where the housing slump is concerned......Total sales in the first quarter of this year were the fifth highest on record......the real growth has come in suburbs like Cary,Morrisville & Apex.....The subdivision of Preston, where prices are up 3.5 percent over last year, reigns as the area’s übersuburb."
I agree about the doom and gloom, but I highly doubt that the average home in Preston has appreciated 3.5% and would love to see the data.
The problem with articles like this is that they always paint house price appreciation as a good thing and fewer housing starts and depreciation as a bad thing. Raleigh may have been spared the bubble that hit many markets, but the only true "good news" with respect to housing is demand = supply.
A strong real estate sector, which is generally understood as lots of building, appreciation and high prices, is not a very good indicator of a region's economic health.
There's a guy at work who has been trying to sell his house all year. He keeps cutting the price but there are no buyers. I've seen data (charts) that indicate we are no where near the bottom of the national housing market, the accurate data shows that bottom somewhere in 2011 to 2012. Home prices for middle class wages should be somewhere around 100-120K depending on income range (this is where you price a home at 5 times someone's yearly salary), but prices could fall way below that as part of the retraction of an extremely large bubble. This is assuming normal economic conditions, the credit liquidity crunch is a whole new variable thrown into the picture. It is quite fascinating seeing all that is happening in the economy. If you are planning on buying and are not under pressure to buy right away, it's in your interest to wait. If you are selling, good luck, the sooner you sell the better.
There's a guy at work who has been trying to sell his house all year. He keeps cutting the price but there are no buyers. I've seen data (charts) that indicate we are no where near the bottom of the national housing market, the accurate data shows that bottom somewhere in 2011 to 2012. Home prices for middle class wages should be somewhere around 100-120K depending on income range (this is where you price a home at 5 times someone's yearly salary), but prices could fall way below that as part of the retraction of an extremely large bubble. This is assuming normal economic conditions, the credit liquidity crunch is a whole new variable thrown into the picture. It is quite fascinating seeing all that is happening in the economy. If you are planning on buying and are not under pressure to buy right away, it's in your interest to wait. If you are selling, good luck, the sooner you sell the better.
I would definitely agree that it's better to wait for lower prices. I'm certainly doing it myself. As they are now, prices pretty much everywhere are simply unaffordable for most people - even those who can get decent loans. There is simply too much supply on the market now, and sellers aren't being realistic about prices. Most of that lack of realism, I suppose, has to do with this lingering insane notion that home equity is somehow a means of building legitimate wealth. It is not. Home equity means owning a product - a home in this case - to do with as you please and not be subject to the whims and rules of a landlord. Sellers are afraid of losing wealth that never really existed in the first place.
Sellers are afraid of losing wealth that never really existed in the first place.
This is wrong. The wealth did exist. If you sold when prices were high, like I did and many others did, then you realized the profit. For other people I know that kept wanting more or worse yet, kept refinancing, they lost out. You have to sell when the market tells you to. That is how you realize the profit. I sold, took my profit and bought elsewhere, where the market did not have a bubble.
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