sounds like there are some bitter people who missed the boat. according to zillow, my home peaked at $1.350m , and now it's at $1.3m. i paid about 750k for it. ya, the free-fall in depreciation is just killin me... not. yes i'm a proud homeowner. are you a proud renter?
There will always be lots of people who cannot qualify for a mortgage. Thats a fact of life. There is a whole gaggle of have nots floundering aimlessly living in housing projects, trailers, converted vans, camping on someone's land, living in warehouses and hooking up with mom and day eating crap all day. Some lucky ones are renting one bed bedroom dens and having no tax deductions. There is a whole lot out there and these idiots are always jealous of people who own homes and and who make enough and qualify for a mortgage. These are the same idiots who speculated for a downfall of home prices and put off buying opportunities. These are the same culprits who have pulled the whole Temple down on their heads. Now they cannot qualify and get a mortgage without at least 10% down payment! Man that 10% down payment nobody has except people with very good jobs, 700 plus FICO scores and a great savings history and thats the kicker. Serves them right.
You are doing good. Zillow is not the accurate tool though, its an estimate and their estimates tend to be slightly on the downside of things. You need to add special features and remodeling etc to get a better estimation.
My gf works for a lender, she showed me a house on zillow thats showing 1.9, the appraisal just came in a little under 1.5.
That's true, except that there aren't any good school districts in North County. And the 7-900,000 homes are mostly concentrated around Shadowridge in south Oceanside; the school district there is laughable; and values are decreasing steadily in those areas as well. The problem with the schools in the area is that along with the kids from the gated home communities, the schools are also packed with kids from poorer rented homes. You know, the ne'er do well kind of people from.. (insert background here). Allow me to illustrate: There is a home in that area that was worth $1,056,000 at the peak of the R.E. boom. It is a beautiful home with about 3,000 square feet, but it is flanked by neighboring homes. Over the past year the value of the house has free-fallen to 858,000, and the value will continue to deflate in the coming year. The neighboring homes are a similar story. Though worth less in value, they have decreased proportionally - from being worth 750 to about 600 over the past year. I think these homes are a buy around 500 (2002 values) but not more than that. In 5 or 6 years if the economy does well I think that homes will return to bubble values, but if the economy tanks homes will halve in value in the bubble areas, if not more.
A Million dollar home doesn't sells for 500K. Its pure fantasy. Unless there are some dire circumstances and that too is very rare. This is the kind of lopsided speculation that some the buyers/consumers did and look where they are now? Between a rock and hard place. Now they will have to come up with 10% down payments before a lender will touch their ass! Inexperienced as they are, they underestimate real estate values. Real estate prices are sticky on the downward side , tough to break down unless people donot have jobs and they can't pay their mortgages. The sellers will hold on much longer for better prices to sell.
I have not missed any boats. I was fully loaded with Real Estate. I doubled my money in Carlsbad and then owned multiple properties in florida. I lost 30 thou on the last one. My credit is strong. I have more than enough for a down payment. If you do not think prices have already dropped significantly in north county you are not tracking price per square foot. If you want to see houses dropping quickly go talk to the new home builders. You can get 20% discounts from last years prices. And if you want to go lower they say make an offer. If you want to see a crash happening check out the new neighborhoods in south county. It you wish to see prices down 30% check out condos in North County. If you really want to know about prices ask your lender about Jumbo loans and whether they can qualify people and find them 95/5 or 90/10s. There was no corellation between prices and income because you did not have to have income to get a big loan. Now you do and that is why prices are getting crushed. Ask your lender about loans above 417,000. No banks want the last 5-20 percent. If you do find a loan your rates will be absurd. If you don't think prices are down try and sell your home in the next 90 days. It won't happen unless you have a perfect location and a good house or you make yourself the cheapest house in your subdivision. (rancho penasquitos and carmel valley may be excluded)
I bought my house in 1997 and in 2005 at the peak or the RE bubble it had tripled in value. Now it has dropped considerably but it is still worth around double what I'd paid for. What should I have done? Sold it, moved out and rented? Buy it back in a few years? To me, it is not worth the trouble as I consider a house an illiquid asset. I had not taken out any home equity loans so my mortgate is almost paid off. Pretty soon I'll just be paying property taxes and upkeep. In fact, what really annoys me is that my properly taxes went up from $5,000 in 1997 to the current $13,000 (Nassau County, NY). This was because my assesments just kept going up and up and up. If a housing crash will bring down my property taxes, then I welcome it.
Big assumption that all houses are rapidly depreciating. Only thing that happened to my house is the rate of growth has slowed considerable but still way up from 1999 purchase price. I think many people assume there is one real estate market but this country is so big that you have to go city by city to make any determinations and even then those are good only for that area.