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I have drop the price a total of 16k.I have been on the market since May 07.We have had showings almost every weekend.And have had 4 return showings.Never had any neg comments.But not one offer.Yes its frustrating.We are priced at the low end of all the homes like ours.Which is at 95.I know how you feel.I don't need to sell.Just want to downsize.But were do you draw the line were its better to just stay put.We have done all the preinspection and repairs.There having a Auction Sale priice event at the end of the month.If it dosen't sell then.I don't think it will.Its tuff here in N.E. Fl.
Did you post your house on the City data classifieds yet? A lot of people look here when they want to relocate.
Oh, and a house most certainly can be worth less than the actual cost to build, if the property values have gone down in your area.
Absolutely. All it takes is major job loss in the area. Or reduced credit. Or any other number of factors.
A houses "value" is reliant on demand. No demand, worthless.
The housing market has historically been a sound investment with a nice 5% long-term appreciation. Just like a stable mutual fund, except you can live inside this mutal fund and not pay rent.
The 5% long-term rate of return is a number the real estate industry likes, but it's misleading.
It doesn't take into account differences in construction, or upgrades or improvements. A new home build in 2000, for example, is likely to be bigger than one build in 1950. It also has features, such as central air conditioning, that wouldn't have been included in the 1950 home.
Robert Schiller, the Yale economist and author of 'Irrational Exuberance,' says that the real long-term rate of return is 0.4%.
Over the long-term, people spend approximately the same proportion of their income on housing. What that means is that housing prices can't rise faster than incomes.
When you think about it, it makes sense, because if housing appreciated faster than income, eventually people would be spending more than 100% of their income on housing.
What you can see from the graph is that housing prices varied between an index of 75 and 125, until 7 or 8 years ago, when they spiked upward.
When housing prices return to their historical trend, you should expect to see prices fall between 40% - 60%.
The question is whether it'll be quick, and short, or long and drawn out.
"It all points to an unavoidable truth. Every housing boom of the last few centuries has been followed by decades in which home values fell relative to inflation. Over the long term, the portion of income that families spend on their shelter stays about the same."
I think you should be aware also of how the market goes right now and be aware of the right timing as well. You also need patience other than being optimistic. You know, when it comes to things like timing the real estate market and when is the best time to invest, everyone has an opinion about real estate investing. The problem is, is just someones 2 cents based on who knows what. The key to not getting creamed when you venture into a real estate investment is to have good information that is based on facts ... that is, analysis coming from hard data.
This site is erronious to say the least... It says my house was finished in 4/2005, is 3000 sqft and sold for 305k.
It wasn't finished until 7/05 and cost way more than 305k to build (I built it) and says it's worth 291k. How could a house be worth LESS than the original cost to build or replace it?
I think they left off land costs and my labor in their estimation. It's my guess they just go by the original loan and figure from there.....
P.S. I also just noticed that the owner is listed as the person I bought the land from!
I can't speak for your area, but in general for our area it looks more realistic than Zillow. Just stating my experiences with the two sites. Plus, Zillow allows homeowners themselves to sales prices. Yeah right, like that's going to be accurate.
A home can easily be worth less than what it cost to build it, even on the day it closes.
HouseFront seems to be a bit more accurate than Zillow, which I've noticed is way off in many instances.
Housefront was even worse than Zillow for our property. It didn't have the room number correct, the correct sq. footage, the wrong numbers of bathrooms, they had our central forced air gas furnace listed as a "wall unit"....Zillow was pretty bad too....LOTS of wrong information...
I'm a recent house buyer, and we found our house in a weird way.
Every internet search that my wife and I had done, we had listed 200k as the top of our price range. When we hooked up with a buying agent, she did the same thing (as we had requested).
One Sunday, my wife and I were out hitting some open houses. We run across an open house sign, but it wasn't on a street we had planned to visit. We followed the signs anyways, just for kicks.
We ended up at a house that was listed at 205k. It had never turned up on any of our searches. Went went inside, fell in love with it, and immediately put in an offer.
I don't know what your price point is. But if anyone out there is listing their house at 205k, 255k, 305k, 405k, ect- you might just be missing a lot of potential buyers for something as simple as not posting at a proper price point (199, 249, 299, ect). This should be quite an obvious thing to do, but we would never have found our home if we wouldn't have taken a chance and hit a random open house.
Housefront was even worse than Zillow for our property. It didn't have the room number correct, the correct sq. footage, the wrong numbers of bathrooms, they had our central forced air gas furnace listed as a "wall unit"....Zillow was pretty bad too....LOTS of wrong information...
O.Nana
The thing with Zillow vs the other site, I can go to Zillow & claim my house, on the other site I haven't figured out how to do that yet.
I'm a recent house buyer, and we found our house in a weird way.
Every internet search that my wife and I had done, we had listed 200k as the top of our price range. When we hooked up with a buying agent, she did the same thing (as we had requested).
One Sunday, my wife and I were out hitting some open houses. We run across an open house sign, but it wasn't on a street we had planned to visit. We followed the signs anyways, just for kicks.
We ended up at a house that was listed at 205k. It had never turned up on any of our searches. Went went inside, fell in love with it, and immediately put in an offer.
I don't know what your price point is. But if anyone out there is listing their house at 205k, 255k, 305k, 405k, ect- you might just be missing a lot of potential buyers for something as simple as not posting at a proper price point (199, 249, 299, ect). This should be quite an obvious thing to do, but we would never have found our home if we wouldn't have taken a chance and hit a random open house.
Isn't it funny how it works sometimes? The home we are buying...my father asked us as a favor to go look at some properties & meet a realtor (we are moving from out of state & he did a lot of leg work for us in several communities & passed on the info to us). Our minds were set on a completely different area.
We pull up to this one property in an area I had never even considered. Get inside, see the backyard, see the obvious maintenance that had been maintened on the home...we knew we wanted to make an offer. Should be taking possession mid-Nov.
So, sometimes it is just luck for both buyer & seller. I think in today's market, people have just got to be prepared for the unexpected.
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