Are you still in the area?
Yes, been here for over a decade truly love the area
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<<What are housing prices doing where you live? >>
They’re going ballistic, at least have been for years now, still going up but pace is perhaps slowing a little.
We rent. Single family home, 1270 sq. feet with some additional semi-finished basement space, 3 small BR, 1.5 bath. Landlords bought about 8 years ago for approx. $230k. Granted, they did some renovations but it’s not top of the line stuff. Now assessed above $500k and a house very like ours down the street recently sold for north of $600k. Go into the fancier parts of town and you can easily spend $1M for a 1000 sq. ft condo.
Lack of decent quality, reasonably affordable housing is one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, issue facing City of Boston.
What’s your rent if you don’t mind me asking and what area are you?
$2400. We are lucky they haven’t raised rent in the 5 years we’ve been there. Mid/south Dorchester - Pope’s Hill area.
I’m a Phoenix Realtor and it’s been pretty interesting watching the market over the last many years.
We saw things stall out last fall. In December and January it almost seemed like the top due to the federal shutdown and stock market drop. Then in late February demand went crazy again, buying pressure went way up, and we’re seeing a super hot market again. Dropping interest rates definitely helped this, too.
A couple examples that just stick out in my head:
An investor bought an acre of land with a mobile home out in the boonies in 2010ish for $30k. I helped a buyer purchase it in 2015 for $120k. It is probably now worth about $200k.
A first time home buyer purchased a small home in north Phoenix for $215k in April 2016. Sold last October 2018 for 270k.
We’re seeing pretty consistent 10% gains year over year. The run up in 2003-2007 was too much, the crash from 2008-2011 was too much, and we are now close to being on the high side again (in my opinion). I’d really like to see 3-5% gains long term as that just seems healthier to me. But we have so much demand from California and the Midwest it is just putting pressure all over. Maricopa is the fastest growing county in the US.
The economy still seems to be chugging along extremely well right now. But, like anything else, only time will tell.
At the other and of the housing market it would seem and in the UK…
Bought a 3 bed, 1.5 bathroom brick terraced in NE England 2006 for £88k, can’t even get any interest at £65k. Currently rented for £400/pm. Local over provision of big estates of new build homes by major house builders with all sorts of deals on purchase have decimated the traditional first time buyers market.
Currently in Shetland Isles privately renting an ex-social housing property , 3 bed, 1 bathroom for £550/pm which is cheap for here, but its hardly a des res! In fact currently trying to get my useless landlord to sort out the toilet plumbing, again…
What do you do in shetland
It’s astonishing how distorted the UK market has been
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The apartment I rented in 1999 for $850 a month just went up for $2750. 2br 1ba no laundry in Boulder. Cute old brick house - I really enjoyed living there in grad school. But it’s the attic of an old house where the ceiling is too low to stand under near the walls.
There’s a big difference between the $400 a month I paid for the smaller room and splitting $2750 so say $1300 a month. It looks like they updated a lot and moved a wall out to make the bedroom where you could stand up in it.
What are housing prices doing where you live?
How do you see this playing out on the economy?
It’s insane. I keep wondering when the bubble is going to burst. There were big crashes in the early 1980’s and 1990’s so its going to come again, but when and how bad is anybody’s guess. I live in Bumfuk, Ontario in a small village. What cost $100,000. 20 yrs ago is well over $400,000 now. My same home would cost me up to 10 x as much in Vancouver or Toronto depending on location. So its not just big cities. In small towns its retiring baby boomers escaping the urban jungles that are driving the market, but once they dry up let’s see what happens.
I’m the Outdoor Access Officer, so improving and promoting countryside access across the Isles and dealing with issues that arise.
Yeh, the UK housing market is bonkers. Most private rental private houses here on Shetland are around the £1000pm, average house prices are about £180k, but most are more towards £250k. I can’t afford to buy here.
I bet winters miserable isn’t it?
If your house is rented, and you can afford to keep it, then you just need to write it off
I managed to do something very similar, I committed to buy in London in 2014. By the time I completed Brexit and other things happened and I’m now in a similar hole in percentage terms.
Ive given up worrying about it.
Winter has it’s moments for sure, but long days the rest of the year are great.
Yeah, we’ve had a good tenant for a few years so we’ll just leave it renting unless they move on and then we might try to sell again.
Damn. And I thought our small, dungeon like 2 bed 1 bath suite was steep at $1600.
We built a house last year in Fort Langley (nice-ish suburb, BCtriguy will know what i’m talking about) and we have a basement suite that rents for $1550. Seems insane of me to pay that much for a crappy 2 bedroom basement suite - but people are paying it… so what do I care.
I live in the Nashville area…its always been very affordable her until about 5 years ago…growing and real estate is increasing about 8-10% a year. Homes that were 3=400K 5 years ago are now 5-600K. Compared to west coast and some NE cities is still very affordable here, for now.
I live in the urban core of Nashville. First year here (2012) I rented an apt. (750 sf - $1,210/mo). That same apt. now rents from $1,450 to $2,000 (very dynamic pricing here, much like the airlines). That’s down a good $400/month from 2014-17 since there are now so many new apts. here.
I bought my house in 2013 for $254,900 and now could sell it for $550,000.
In San Francisco - it’s totally crazy. A friend has a MONTH-TO-MONTH lease on an apt. and his landlord wants to buy him out - for $23,000 (which is lowball and they are negotiating). Damn! I left SF too soon. Two units in the alley across the street from my old flat in SF had their leases bought out for $75,000 EACH.
California prices are crazy right now. I bought a house in 2016 for $180,000 and can now sell it in the mid to upper $500,000 range.
Reporting from metro Detroit, MI. Purchased our new build two years ago for $320k. Same layout across the street with fewer upgrades is now listed for $420k. 30% increase over two years is nuts for this area.
Most millennials complaining about housing prices still don’t have proper down payments saved up. Even if dropped 30% cross the board a good chunk still cant get approved for a mortgage. It’s a wage issue, plus increasing costs of renting is pushing their savings down. When I bought a house in Canada I had to start living on a strict budget for a while and installed a low cost alarm solution to save money. But then I found other alarm company that provide better service at lower prices and decided to cancel simplisafe contract. It was the right choice. Now with my new alarm system I can save money and I can be calm that my house stays secure.
A 4 bed family house in London was 7 fold the joint national average income in 2010
Today it is over 25
Lets ponder the sustainability of that
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We live in a smaller Southern US city, but its one that has been getting a lot of attention because it is a technology center for space, missile and rocket technology plus one of the only places where manufacturing is growing versus going away. We rented a 2 bedroom apt. for about $800/mo when we first moved here in 2013 and bought our house two years later for right at $200K (3B/2.5BA/office/pool/.75 acre). Our old apartment is currently renting for about $928, which is still pretty good for a place with a running trail and a lake in front of the building.
We bought at the bottom of the recent real estate market, our house had been vacant for nearly a year and there were several empty houses in our small subdivision. Since then the market has gone bonkers, and houses like ours are going for $50K to $70K more than we paid, and there is a shortage of those available. So much so that our municipal government has approved more than 1,000 new homes to be built less than a mile from our house.
Those houses will probably be sold before the first shovel hits the dirt; about 10K new manufacturing jobs will become available over the next 2-3 years and about 3/4th of the FBI is moving to our town in the next year when the shut down the FBI Building in DC.
I was curious so I looked at a crazy market nearby
195 Erie, Cambridge, MA sold for $82,375 in 95. It’s currently listed at $3.2M. That’s a 3884% increase in 24 years
We live in a smaller Southern US city, but its one that has been getting a lot of attention because it is a technology center for space, missile and rocket technology
Huntsville? Had a fun weekend racing bikes there a couple of years ago.
California prices are crazy right now. I bought a house in 2016 for $180,000 and can now sell it in the mid to upper $500,000 range.
Where in California did you buy ANY house for $180K just 3 years ago???
It’s ridiculous. We are in Oxnard, CA. 3 bed, 2 bath, 3 car ranch. It’s 80’s and spacious. We’re comfortable, but it’s also more than we really need. The problem is finding something that works! 2 dogs and both working from home. I’d love to downsize to a 2 bed 1.5 bath with a 2 car garage, but that’s flat out difficult to find. Aaand, we’re actually under-value (another situation where we lucked out with good “grandmom and grandpop” landlords), so the 2/1.5 would probably be the same amount we’re paying. Caveat: our house in PA is (+) cash flow, which helps offset our rent that much more. It works … for now.