OT: February home prices see the biggest gain in 15 years

[avalonracing]

I'm a Redfin agent in the area. I live this stuff every day. Even so, we agents are often surprised by some of the prices and terms we've been getting on our listings.

Originally Posted by tuxbailey

My neighbor who lives at the end of our shared driveway sold their house 2 days after listing, at a price that myself and others thought was not realistic.

But unless we are ready to retire, not much we can do but pay more property taxes.

[buddybikes]

Simple interest rates and longer loans. People treat houses buying now as a rental basically. Stock market going nuts, people have down payments so willing to go more. Revolving door till 2% goes to 3 goes to 5 goes to 7 and cards come tumbling down.

But who am I to know, we have lived in 2 houses our 35 years of marriage and intend on going out of here horizontally unless a hurricane takes it out first. (looking at egrets and herons out the back slider right now and know power of nature)

[Tickdoc]

Currently on vacation but I am spending my much needed week off liquidating, organizing, throwing away junk, and packing so we can put our house on the market soon.

I’ve got most of the crap I don’t need stored in a container, and now we’re down to removing personal items.

I have a temporary house to live in for the next year or so. Plan to put a pod on it for the rest of it once this one sells.

The frenzy out there now is just mind boggling. Here in the mid south we are used to seeing housing trends take a few years to reach us but it is just nuts out there. I’m excited to cash out while the sell is easy, but appalled at what we see available. Hoping for a quick cash sale but I’m also pricing high as we are in no real need to sell.

Then we can just sit back and see what opens up. Hopefully bubbles will burst and we will be in a position to jump. If not, we may build. ( if construction materials would normalize)

I’ve been in our current home for close to 17 years but we’ve watched the traffic around us increase to the point we are tired of dealing with it and are ready to get out and downsize.

Fingers crossed!

[Clean39T]

Triangulating between this thread, the Nomadland thread, and the "guy who died with a bunch of watches and a Pegoretti" thread makes my head spin......

[572cv]

Originally Posted by Clean39T

Triangulating between this thread, the Nomadland thread, and the "guy who died with a bunch of watches and a Pegoretti" thread makes my head spin......

. I'm just happy to be waiting for a new Kirk to get painted, a note of sanity and delicious anticipation in a crazy, topsy turvy world.

[jlwdm]

Originally Posted by el cheapo

...
Closed in TWO days and the cashier's check is in the bank. Never in my wildest dreams! Anybody planning to sell look closely at the comps and go from there.

Comps are worthless in most markets. I listed a house two weeks ago and got an offer for $450,000 over the highest comp the first day.

Title companies won’t take cashier’s checks here.

Jeff

[Clean39T]

Originally Posted by 572cv

. I'm just happy to be waiting for a new Kirk to get painted, a note of sanity and delicious anticipation in a crazy, topsy turvy world.

Solid decision. Thankfully Dave hasn't indexed his prices to the housing market inflation figures in Bozeman.. yet.

[saab2000]

So a dumb question perhaps.....

Where do people get hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to make these cash purchases?

I sold my first house in 2013 to a cash buyer and the buyer was the brother of the woman who would live there. She was upper middle aged from what I understood (never met her) and her brother was generous. But that as relatively inexpensive coming in under $200k. The market then was beginning to recover from the doldrums of the housing crash.

I bought my next house in 2017 after renting for a few years and sold less than two years later and made a significant profit. Moved to Naperville, IL and bought a townhouse for just under $300K and now it's worth like $330K in 18 months. I've had actual knocks on my door asking if I was interested in selling. I'm not, at the moment, though this isn't really where I planned on ending up but that's a story for another time.

But who can drop a cool half mill (or more) in cash on a house? We hear most Americans live paycheck to paycheck and have no cash to make a car repair if something happens. And we hear about how many Americans up up to their eyeballs in consumer debt and student loan debt. So who are the people coming up with all this cash to outbid everyone to buy homes?

Just curious. It seems out of sync with the world I live in. I'm financially comfortable due to decades of living within my budget and making good decisions and having a strong market since I started saving for retirement. But I can't fathom writing a $500K check for a house. What gives?

[Clean39T]

Originally Posted by saab2000

So a dumb question perhaps.....

Where do people get hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to make these cash purchases?

I sold my first house in 2013 to a cash buyer and the buyer was the brother of the woman who would live there. She was upper middle aged from what I understood (never met her) and her brother was generous. But that as relatively inexpensive coming in under $200k. The market then was beginning to recover from the doldrums of the housing crash.

I bought my next house in 2017 after renting for a few years and sold less than two years later and made a significant profit. Moved to Naperville, IL and bought a townhouse for just under $300K and now it's worth like $330K in 18 months. I've had actual knocks on my door asking if I was interested in selling. I'm not, at the moment, though this isn't really where I planned on ending up but that's a story for another time.

But who can drop a cool half mill (or more) in cash on a house? We hear most Americans live paycheck to paycheck and have no cash to make a car repair if something happens. And we hear about how many Americans up up to their eyeballs in consumer debt and student loan debt. So who are the people coming up with all this cash to outbid everyone to buy homes?

Just curious. It seems out of sync with the world I live in. I'm financially comfortable due to decades of living within my budget and making good decisions and having a strong market since I started saving for retirement. But I can't fathom writing a $500K check for a house. What gives?

The level of income and wealth-accumulation inequality in these United States is staggering, isn't it?

I'm as dumbfounded as you.

Maybe I didn't choose my parents right or something. Or was born a generation or two too late.

[Ozz]

Originally Posted by saab2000

So a dumb question perhaps.....

Where do people get hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to make these cash purchases? ...

Some sources

• Stock options / bonuses for execs or tech industry
• Real Estate Developers buying the older, small homes in a nice neighborhood
• Equity from prior home sale
• Transfer of assets from foreign country to the US

We bought our first house after we got married in 1996....for about $220,000. Sold it in 2011 and ended up with about $600,000 in equity. Dumped all of it into the current house and we still have a jumbo mortgage.... The good news is that our down payment on the first house was only about $20,000....so the return on that was pretty nice.

[AngryScientist]

Originally Posted by saab2000

So a dumb question perhaps.....

Where do people get hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to make these cash purchases?

I sold my first house in 2013 to a cash buyer and the buyer was the brother of the woman who would live there. She was upper middle aged from what I understood (never met her) and her brother was generous. But that as relatively inexpensive coming in under $200k. The market then was beginning to recover from the doldrums of the housing crash.

I bought my next house in 2017 after renting for a few years and sold less than two years later and made a significant profit. Moved to Naperville, IL and bought a townhouse for just under $300K and now it's worth like $330K in 18 months. I've had actual knocks on my door asking if I was interested in selling. I'm not, at the moment, though this isn't really where I planned on ending up but that's a story for another time.

But who can drop a cool half mill (or more) in cash on a house? We hear most Americans live paycheck to paycheck and have no cash to make a car repair if something happens. And we hear about how many Americans up up to their eyeballs in consumer debt and student loan debt. So who are the people coming up with all this cash to outbid everyone to buy homes?

Just curious. It seems out of sync with the world I live in. I'm financially comfortable due to decades of living within my budget and making good decisions and having a strong market since I started saving for retirement. But I can't fathom writing a $500K check for a house. What gives?

i donno.

let's say joe average buys his first house when he is 25 with a 30 year mortgage. he maintains steady employment and does OK for himself. later in life once he is established he is more diligent and pays off the 30yr in 25 when he is now 50.

he bought into a nice neighborhood and his home is now worth 600k. he sells it. he has that cash available for the next home.

that seems like an entirely plausible scenario, no?


edit: haha i described Ozz's life.

[72gmc]

My guess, Saab, is that at least a few of those cases are people cashing out stocks and/or raising their "budget" to the ceiling of their salary + stock rewards. Sort of the opposite of living within a budget and making good decisions, to my mind, but it keeps realtors and luxury car dealers in business ...

[Ken Robb]

Some "cash" offers still involve the buyer getting a loan. They just don't make getting a loan a contingency of the sale. OTOH some buyers may liquidate almost all of their assets to be able to show enough cash to pay the contract price but then take out a real estate loan after they own the place they are buying and use the loan proceeds to get back into similar assets to what they had recently liquidated. It seems like a lot of trouble but a "cash" offer is mighty appealing to a seller.

[xeladragon]

Originally Posted by saab2000

So a dumb question perhaps.....

Where do people get hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to make these cash purchases?

Originally Posted by Clean39T

The level of income and wealth-accumulation inequality in these United States is staggering, isn't it?

^^ This probably.

I'm guessing a good percentage of all-cash offers are real estate investors, but anyway... my mind is continuously blown by the ever increasing home prices in the Boston area. If you want to live relatively close to the city, have a family, and need something move-in ready with 3+ bedrooms, good luck finding something for under $1mil.

I used to live in a modest townhouse in Cambridge. They just built some brand new condos next to my old place. One of the condos, 3bd/3ba, ~1900sqft, was recently listed for $1.8mil. Sold for $2mil. Yikes!

[saab2000]

I suppose the equity position and stock options make sense. I didn’t buy my first house until I was 40 years old. So I don’t have tons of equity. A buddy who is the same age recently paid off his house because he had so much equity in it his payments were only a few hundred dollars monthly. He wanted the peace of mind of full ownership.