+ SHOW US YOUR PAD/ FLAT/ CAVE/ PENT-HOUSE/ CARDBOARD BOX/… +
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Another Austin get together would be fun.
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Working from home has made my partner and I consider upsizing and viewings have started. Not sure if it is a good time to move but it would be fun to have outside space.
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About 95% done with my laundry room remodel:
When we bought the house 2 years ago
Now:
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Thanks gents - I'm glad it turned out well, but man, small spaces are always the worst to work in!
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Looks great, and a lot more functional. I miss having a laundry area sink. Those are so useful.
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Yeah, a laundry sink is a must for me, and the swap from a clunky utility sink to the deep bar sink really gave us a ton more counter space which will inevitably just be used sweaty hats and dirty kids clothes haha [emoji23]
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We are selling this, my first purchased home. We did a lot to it and have ridden the real estate wave hopefully well; a difficult market that would have been even moreso as a first time buyer. We love, but outgrew, this home. Bittersweet to move on from it and its location.
We found a home that gives us nearly twice the space in an area we prefer. Better set up for the family across the board. I’m grateful that we were able to find a place that will support our larger family without making sacrifices we’re uncomfortable with. Excited to have two garages (we’re not even using the current minute garage for car, and it hails here a lot), fenced front and back, open floor plan, breakfast nook, and a finished basement that will include a bar, A/V, fitness, and bedrooms.
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Congrats McClain!! I loved your old house (via the photos over the years) and the new one looks especially Lovely!!
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Nice @mclaincausey!! Looks like a great pad!!
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Congrats @mclaincausey! I know the CO market is pretty insane right now, I imagine you won't have any issues. My brother sold his house in Edgewater last month. He received multiple offers within 24 hours of listing and had it closed within a few weeks.
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Cheers @Clint_D and I love what you and the missus are doing with your home! I'm as pleased as I am unsurprised to hear about your brother: that is a very hot area.
Spot-on on the CO market (and, I hear, your neck of the woods as well). I think part of it is an exodus from CA, where people can cash out of their homes and come in with aggressive offers here. The majority of homes go over list, sometimes by six figures. A friend in Golden told me a house down the street from him went for $300k over list, cash offer, site unseen. We were significantly outbid by a cash offer on our new home (we saw it the day it was available for showings and wrote one of three offers sent that day), but fortunately the other party didn't pull it together in time and we got under contract without chasing any offers–we love the house, but part of the appeal was the price point.
I feel like I got very lucky with our current home, very lucky with our next home, and hope the luck continues with the sale of our current home.
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Congratulations on the new house @mclaincausey and I'm glad that you weren't outbid. Sounds like it'll be a good place once it's all done.
Here in Australia it's completely mad right now, to the extent that those crazy Californian prices are actually looking reasonable value for money.
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Thanks @Graeme I didn’t realize Oz has this issue too. I wonder if the supply is constrained by the wildfires having destroyed homes? I’ve visited Perth and Sydney and loved them, so I can see the appeal.
As @Appfaff indicated in the (very entertaining) podcast, the dynamics are changing in real estate, and not just high end vacation homes. And even when the high end of the market is impacted, it seems to carry downmarket.
I’d never have predicted this (or for that matter stock markets’) reaction to the COVID economy. At times I’ve thought we waited too long to make a move but then I look at how things are set to unfold and I think we may have played things perfectly (again, more by luck than design, though plenty of both).
More broadly I am concerned about the long-term impact of such a difficult housing market on people trying to get a leg up. Home ownership can make or break your financial destiny and it’s good to have more “make” than “break” opportunities from an economic standpoint. Since we’re also facing a retirement crisis, perhaps the inflated home prices will help some homeowners make up for lost time getting their nest eggs where they need to be. But it’s definitely been a rough road for generations entering the job market since 2008.
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As @mclaincausey said, home ownership has been a way to financial independence for a lot of people for a very long time, especially in the US where the wealth (and subsequent housing market) gaps can be almost unjustifiable to some degrees.
One interesting thing to understand is that the housing market may feel "inflated," now, but in all actuality, it took a very long, slow road to recovery from the 2008-2010 timeframe. While the peak of pricing say in 2006-2008 was caused by a combination of demand from buyers who were (my opinion) immorally approved for larger payments than they could safely justify, the prices now (in most US markets) are being driven by an opposing segment marker which is used in a healthy market, which is new inventory (new construction) coming to market.
A healthy market can be measured by the amount of new construction product coming into a space, which adds to the total pool. Every market is different, but in our market, even before COVID, we were already 12 months "behind" in new construction being added to the pool of available homes. I do know in similar markets near us, such as in Alabama where I used to actively sell, the amount of new construction SEEMED overwhelming, but data showed even they were 6-8 months behind on demand.
When COVID happened, things such as lumber prices, and states where construction was considered non-essential did slow construction down, which only worsened the situation for most markets who were already behind. Nationally, two of the largest builders actually decreased pulling new building permits by 30-60% in certain markets, as they were hedging their bets on a crash.
No one could have known, but most analysts say "with more people spending time at home," and a 200%+ increase in YOY real estate searches online, people began dreaming of the only place they COULD live as they wished - which was home.
The Bad News: Markets nationally are tight. Competition for purchases are cut throat, and people are paying way above appraisals for properties (notice I did not say "paying too much," as "it's worth what someone is willing to pay in the moment" - the trend in cash only further justifies this).
The Good News: The average credit score of a buyer in 2006 was 530. The average credit score of a buyer in 2021 is 760+. What that means is that the "demand" for homes is not indicative of an artificial crash as we saw a decade and a half ago. In reality, people are putting hard cash down to cover appraisal gaps, and in a lot of cases, by the time a home closes through a 3-6 week contract term, the appreciation is catching up to the contract prices, and people oftentimes even have built-in equity. This is good news, even for those who "feel" they are overpaying in "today's" market - they are still building wealth.
Dave Ramsey (I don't love him, but this was a good perspective) said - the best thing you can do right now is to stay in the market. If you love your home, stay in it. If you sell, you should try to buy again, not rent. Mainly because "you are all on a level playing field," in your market. If you step out, and try to step back in in 6 months thinking it will slow down, you might not be able to buy what you could 6 months prior.
I can't speak regarding the ultra-major metros (San Fran, LA, NYC, etc) or overseas, but this is causing of a lot of what we are seeing around the US.
In you are in a market that offers space, a positive climate for business, or a lifestyle that the big cities can't offer, demand by the mid tier property buyers will continue to feed this, especially as the high paying jobs are no longer tied to a physical location, local salaries will no longer have as much impact on local real estate pricing, no matter where it is.
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That resonates…. If you already have a home, yeah, you may have to pay more for your new one, but you'll also make more on the sale of your current one. So if you are smart (and lucky), you can move upmarket without becoming house-poor. Especially with interest rates unlocking a lot of purchasing power for the time being.
Some areas (Golden, Boulder) have geological constraints on where you can build (read: mountains denying real estate acreage, just like the Bay does in the Bay Area), and some (Boulder) have significant policy constraints on expanding residential capacity. Even in Denver, less burdened by those factors, the economics are not helping the supply... if you can't build out, build up... Why wouldn't a developer build condos, duplexes, and apartments instead of the detached housing that we really want?
On the materials costs (and the contracting labor market) piece, doing an extensive renovation on our home was not an attractive option versus buying a new place right now. But we would have done that before moving into a house with more space that wasn't as nice--we already identified a way to make the old house scale beautifully.
