House Prices

Prices have blown up in my neck of the woods too, people who’d dreamed of living in the mountains can now work remotely from home and are flocking here. Another huge factor that’s affecting renters is the Air b n b market, it’s crushing our small community
How much do you charge for a weekend on your ranch ?
 
Seems to be happening everywhere at the moment. I don't know what's driving it. At first it seemed there was a housing shortage after '08 when houses weren't being built, then brokerages/investment companies were buying up houses, then foreign investors. I don't know. Nothing seems to explain it all to my peanut brain.

From a personal experience, wife and I bought our first house early March 2020 (great timing, I know. we closed and 5 days later the world shut down). Cost was 475k which really stretched out budget but we live in a rapidly growing city with a great job market (Austin TX) and were fortunate enough to have a windfall to help with the down payment so we went for it. 2 years later, our next door neighbors sold their house for near double that price (800k), despite it being slightly smaller and needing work.

So do the math. In 2 years, during a pandemic and everything else going on, the housing market has somehow doubled. Absolutely fucking insane.
 
A big problem here Bill is that prices rose dramatically in Toronto, which then led to people selling their houses there and moving out into this rural area for a quieter lifestyle, surrounded by lakes. If they needed to commute for five or six years, then they were happy to do that. That simply increased the house prices here.

COVID came along, and people thought they would always continue to work from home, so there was another exodus and prices rose even more............and then more. For those who they were called back, now couldn't afford to move back to the city.

With that came a scarcity and now anything advertised always sells a couple of hundred thousand above asking price........with NO conditions. If you have conditions, you may as well not even submit an offer.

The old option of 'fixer uppers' is not on the table for the younger generation, the purchase prices are just too much to make it viable.

These days it's not just the purchase market that is unaffordable, rental properties are seriously in demand, because there just aren't any.

We own a second investment home and rent it out for a fair rent and occasionally we'll get a moan from the tenant. When I get that, I feel like telling him to find somewhere else, because I know he'll be paying at least $800/month more and we'd have no problem whatsoever finding new tenants. They would be lined up for it.

It's a sad situation, because at present the younger generation have zero chance of getting onto the ladder without substantial support from elsewhere. My son will inherit the house we presently live in, but hopefully I've got perhaps 15/20 years in me, so what does he do until then?
How any young couple can get on the ladder and buy their first house is the question.
This increases the demand for rentals which pumps up the price of rentals.
Next to where I live, 440 new apartments are set to open over the next month or so along with hundreds more further south on Hwy 301 within a 10 mile section. All for rental.....
 
How any young couple can get on the ladder and buy their first house is the question.
This increases the demand for rentals which pumps up the price of rentals.
Next to where I live, 440 new apartments are set to open over the next month or so along with hundreds more further south on Hwy 301 within a 10 mile section. All for rental.....
And Tampa generally has a low cost of living, especially for a city of its size
 
Prices have blown up in my neck of the woods too, people who’d dreamed of living in the mountains can now work remotely from home and are flocking here. Another huge factor that’s affecting renters is the Air b n b market, it’s crushing our small community
How far are you from Boise? Read somewhere that Boise had the highest year over year housing cost increase in 2021
 
It's crazy. We moved last year and thought we'd paid too much, but prices have even gone up since then.

I think I put this in another thread in here too but we bid on 9 houses before getting the one we have now, all but 2 went to best and final offers and in most cases people were prepared to pay 10-15% above asking to secure it. In 4 cases we know the deal fell through as either the buyer had second thoughts or there was no proof of funds. In one case the bank refused to lend as they didn't value the property at the proposed selling price.

I know of first time buyers now with mortgages of well over half a million. They feel they have jumped up the property ladder and skipped a few steps and have a lifetime to pay it off, but with bigger bills and rising costs and interest rates, time will tell whether it was a smart or silly move.

I see a couple of properties even now that we looked at or even bid on, still unsold. But the asking price is at least the same, if not higher than 12 months ago. One had severe structural issues due to a poorly done garage conversion and subsidence, it was taken off but is now back on, same condition it seems, for £20k more.

There is also a huge knock on effect for building services. We need our roof replacing pretty soon according to the surveyor, but of the 6 roofing companies we contacted earlier this year only half even replied, and all of those want so much more to replace a roof than we were quoted even for a 2 bedroom loft conversion at our old property, partly because of cost increases but also because they can pick and choose in this market.

It has to crash at some point you'd imagine. Could get messy
 
There’s some crazy prices out there. Two originally identical houses near me, one went for £225k, one went for £525k. Granted the second one had been extended (by about 20%) but there was nowhere near that amount of difference and the costlier one had a garden backing onto a busy road! Stupid buyers if you ask me.

The bubble really needs to burst because the longer the prices increase the worse it will be when it happens.
 

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