Not buying what they are PUSHING--great charts and info (Sacramento: bank owned, fit in)

[EscapeCalifornia]

The problem with buying a house now that meets your needs right now is that needs change. So you leverage yourself up to your eyeballs in a declining market to buy a nice little two bedroom townhouse in a marginal neighborhood. But who cares about the neighborhood or the schools because you don't have kids. Fast forward three years, you've got kids two under two, you're out of space, and you don't want to be here by the time the oldest enters school. Since you bought in a declining market, you're upside down on the house after selling costs. Ooops. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

[romanceisdead]

Originally Posted by EscapeCalifornia

The problem with buying a house now that meets your needs right now is that needs change. So you leverage yourself up to your eyeballs in a declining market to buy a nice little two bedroom townhouse in a marginal neighborhood. But who cares about the neighborhood or the schools because you don't have kids. Fast forward three years, you've got kids two under two, you're out of space, and you don't want to be here by the time the oldest enters school. Since you bought in a declining market, you're upside down on the house after selling costs. Ooops. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Yep. And also, you have to be able to afford the payment. That is the problem. Part of "if it makes sense to buy", is you have to decide you are willing to pay more every month than you might if you waited two months. We have felt for a long time that if we found a house we could see raising our children in, AND we could afford it-- great! We will buy! But, we have to be able to afford it.

[Ludachris]

Originally Posted by EscapeCalifornia

The problem with buying a house now that meets your needs right now is that needs change. So you leverage yourself up to your eyeballs in a declining market to buy a nice little two bedroom townhouse in a marginal neighborhood. But who cares about the neighborhood or the schools because you don't have kids. Fast forward three years, you've got kids two under two, you're out of space, and you don't want to be here by the time the oldest enters school. Since you bought in a declining market, you're upside down on the house after selling costs. Ooops. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

When I said "if you're ready" I meant if you can afford it and have a good idea that the place you want to buy will suit you for at least 5-10 years. If you think your situation is going to change, or you can't afford the payment for the house you want, then it would seem that you're not ready to buy. If you don't think you'll want to be living in it for at least 5 years I probably wouldn't buy right now - maybe you should wait a year.

What some people in here seem to think is that you have to overextend yourself to make a purchase. Who says that's the case? Buy something you can afford and that is right for you and your family. If you can't afford a nice home in the area you want, then don't risk buying something that you're not happy with or could be a bad investment. It's as simple as that.

[Ludachris]

Originally Posted by DMenscha

The best time to buy is when you are ready, willing, and able to by and it meets your needs at the time you make your decision. I have a client who bought a home pretty close to the top of my local market. They've referred 2 other families to me to represent them and they've acknowledged that they paid more than $75K than what the place is worth today.

For them it was the right thing to do at the right time and they really don't care about what the current value of their home is, because they enjoy living here and they aren't planning to move anytime soon.

Is it a great time to buy? It might be for some, it might not be for others. The problem is that my pals at NAR and CAR like to paint with broad brushes too. I really wish they would concentrate on fixing Realtor.com instead of "helping" me with marketing fluff pieces.

In your opinion, what needs to be fixed on Realtor.com? Just curious.

[DMenscha]

Originally Posted by Ludachris

In your opinion, what needs to be fixed on Realtor.com? Just curious.

There's a lot of interface stuff that we have to deal with on the members side of the website. It's very clunky. When I display my listings to be enhanced, it displays them in an order I still haven't figured out. When I click on a column to sort them it sorts first by Inactive listings. Um hello! Why in the world would I be enhancing a listing that has been sold or expired? Little stuff like that

It also reads selected fields from our MLS and leaves others out. I'd like to be able to select the fields it displays to the public.

One of the first things I ever learned about property descriptions is that you had better say "more or less" when describing the lot size. If I have a 5.25 acre parcel, their website describes it as 228960 square feet.

I'll spare you the rest, those are just my pet peeves. They also don't seem to want input back from users.

[Ludachris]

So it's all on the backend.

On the front end, I really think they need to add a keyword search along with all of the other search criteria so that you can search descriptions and certain fields.

[EscapeCalifornia]

Originally Posted by DMenscha

There's a lot of interface stuff that we have to deal with on the members side of the website. It's very clunky. When I display my listings to be enhanced, it displays them in an order I still haven't figured out. When I click on a column to sort them it sorts first by Inactive listings. Um hello! Why in the world would I be enhancing a listing that has been sold or expired? Little stuff like that

It also reads selected fields from our MLS and leaves others out. I'd like to be able to select the fields it displays to the public.

One of the first things I ever learned about property descriptions is that you had better say "more or less" when describing the lot size. If I have a 5.25 acre parcel, their website describes it as 228960 square feet.

I'll spare you the rest, those are just my pet peeves. They also don't seem to want input back from users.

I wish realtor.com actually took my search inputs seriously. If I'm looking for a 4+ bedroom, 2.5+ bathroom, 2+ car garage, under 20 year old house in a certain city, don't show me a 40 year old 2/2 with 1 car garage 30 miles away.

[romanceisdead]

I always use Metro List.com
I don't think I ever have used realtor.com
But Metro list is pretty simple in terms of search. Price range, place, br/ba

[DMenscha]

Originally Posted by EscapeCalifornia

I wish realtor.com actually took my search inputs seriously. If I'm looking for a 4+ bedroom, 2.5+ bathroom, 2+ car garage, under 20 year old house in a certain city, don't show me a 40 year old 2/2 with 1 car garage 30 miles away.

I don't use the front end of Realtor.com, but I suspect it doesn't treat the front end users any better. In my visits with the tech support people I suggest a few fixes but they seem to be resigned to a culture that doesn't welcome constructive criticism.

[zen_klown]

Originally Posted by DMenscha

The best time to buy is when you are ready, willing, and able to by and it meets your needs at the time you make your decision. I have a client who bought a home pretty close to the top of my local market. They've referred 2 other families to me to represent them and they've acknowledged that they paid more than $75K than what the place is worth today.

For them it was the right thing to do at the right time and they really don't care about what the current value of their home is, because they enjoy living here and they aren't planning to move anytime soon.

Is it a great time to buy? It might be for some, it might not be for others. The problem is that my pals at NAR and CAR like to paint with broad brushes too. I really wish they would concentrate on fixing Realtor.com instead of "helping" me with marketing fluff pieces.

I don't really buy that argument. The last time the unemployment rate in Sacramento was this high was June of 95. Additionally, with the state budget as out of whack as it is now, I think its pretty easy to assume that the local unemployment number isn't falling anytime soon. Generally when people are losing there jobs, housing prices aren't going up anytime soon.

http://www.calmis.ca.gov/file/lfhist/sachlf.xls

Housing prices levels aren't random like the stock market. Housing prices have momentum. When prices are going up, generally they keep going up, when prices are going down, generally they keep going down. The OFHEO index for Sacramento has just fallen the most it has ever fallen.

Central California OFHEO Home Price Appreciation Tracker

If you don't know what the OFHEO index is read about it here.

Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight

On a historical basis housing in Sacramento is still expensive. Over a 21 year period (before the worst excesses of the bubble), the ratio of the median income payment to median family income has averaged about 26.3%. This means half the time it was above this figure and half the time it was below it. Right now even after all of the price drops, it is still 36% in Sacramento.

The Housing Cycle Barometerâ„¢ (http://www.realestateconsulting.com/Newsletters.aspx?quicklaunch=true&newsletter=Strat egic/strategic200206 - broken link)

John Burns Real Estate Consulting - Local Analysis (http://www.realestateconsulting.com/Intelligence.aspx?quicklaunch=true&region=local - broken link)

Historically in Sacramento, housing prices have basically kept pace with inflation. Whenever housing prices have gotten past the inflation equivalent of about 150k in 2008 dollars, prices have dropped. That is what we are seeing right now.

Sacramento, California metropolitan area inflation-adjusted housing prices, 1976-Present (http://mysite.verizon.net/vodkajim/housingbubble/sacramento.html - broken link)

This idea that anytime to buy is a good time to buy is just nonsense. The people who bought in the early 90's were upside down on a nominal basis until 2000. The real price of housing today is still much higher than it was in 1990.