Lots of house for sale signs

[Tiny]

I've starting going for a walk everyday... and omg- the number of houses with for sale signs is insane.  There's at least 2 per "block" on just about every block.      How are things in your neighborhood? 


When I survey the house prices on REaltor.com (fwiw I don't think all of the houses I see for sale are listed there...) I'm only seeing "rehabbed Gray House" sale prices for houses that have been freshly painted/updated in Gray - which means expensive (to me)  houses.   there were a few "fixer uppers" at prices that once you fixed them up they would be in the realm of the "Gray House" prices.  These houses are in rough shape - so I'm not sure an inexperienced home owner would want to tackle them.  They need more than work/have more unknowns than I would be willing to take on.     

Not sure if this is a good thing (all the houses for sale) or a bad thing (all the houses for sale). 

[bean29]

Do you think the houses were rentals and the landlords decided rentals with the prospect of the Gov't telling them they can't evict were a bad risk?  I live in WI and we have very little for sale that does not have an accepted offer on it in the Milwaukee area.  Hard to find much of anything around $200,000.

[resolution]

I'm in western MD and our listings on realtor.com for homes with a decent amount of acreage have been extremely low for this time of year. Most of the reasonably priced homes that are listed become contingent within a week or so. However, the homes I am looking at are not suitable prospects for rentals.

I wonder what percentage of homes make their way onto realtor.com versus being sold without ever being listed. On Zillow, my house in phoenix has a button I can click to receive a cash offer to buy the house from Zillow, and I get multiple phone calls every week from people wanting to buy. My house in MD has no offer from Zillow, instead there is a button I can click to have my information forwarded to local realtors who may be interested in listing it.

[Tiny]

Jul 7, 2020 10:19:49 GMT -5 bean29 said:

Do you think the houses were rentals and the landlords decided rentals with the prospect of the Gov't telling them they can't evict were a bad risk?   

I don't know.    I'm wondering if maybe the "big investor" rental properties are being sold off as well.   I don't think it's the "mom and pop" rental property owners selling at this point.   I will have to check the owner ship of some of some of the houses. 

There are a couple of houses on my block (where the old people died a year or two ago and the house got sold to a flipper - and the flipper finished the rehab and the houses were recently sold (as in sold between March and June 2020).  One house sold for 350K and the other sold for 450K.  These are 1950's era "raised" ranches with about 1200sq feet on the 1st floor (with a full basement) and two bedrooms and a 1/2 bath added in the attic (without raising the roof or adding a dormer- so low ceiling and weird angles to the walls because of the roof).  The flipper added a bathroom to the basement and updated the kitchen/bath and 1/2 bath and painted everything gray.  

A couple of the other houses I was able to find on Realtor.com were also selling in the 450K to 800K range.  These are all houses built in the 1890's thru 1950's.     I guess I need to check on how much houses further down the train line are selling for (actual 'suburban' houses in subdivisions are selling for - these with be the 3 and 4 bed 2000 sqfeet plus 2 car attached garage houses built in the late 70's thru 2010).   

I'm kind of amazed by the prices on the houses.   I can't afford to live in my neighborhood again.   (I'm assuming a 450K house is affordable by a household income of atleast 200K... the property taxes and insurance alone are 10K or more for these houses.... 

FWIW:  if  the sellers are the "companies" or people who bought the houses after the crash (here the bottom of the market was late 2012/first quarter 2013)  they are making a killing in profit on the houses (which they quite possibly purchased for 150K or less and fixed up - so maybe they spent 200K - and can now sell the house for 450K and up.... 

[Lizard Queen]

Inventory is quite low in my area, and prices are up. I'm in West Michigan.

[chiver78]

there is very little for sale in MA as well, which is discouraging b/c I'm looking to buy again soon. it seems like by the time I see it, it's under agreement in a day or so. 

[oped]

Inventory is low here in north central PA. I have a friend who is a realtor. Anything good and priced within reason sells quickly. 

[Deleted]

My area of Eastern Oregon is really weird when it comes to real estate.

You can buy a nice house here for $80K-150K but finding a rental is nearly impossible. And, when you find a rental, the rent is 3+ times what a house payment on the house would be.

Every couple of weeks someone posts on FB that they accepted a government job or one at the hospital and they can't find anywhere to live without buying.

[haapai]

A lot of my coworkers seem to be buying houses recently.  I suspect that a lot of them found that the stimulus checks put them over the top.  We're talking USDA loans and houses under $100K, so not much cash is required at closing.  There seems to be a bit of competition for houses too. 

So we can hope that houses are being listed because realtors know that there are more qualified buyers than usual.  Mortgage rates are also extremely low. 

But that might be happy talk.  People might be listing houses because they know that they won't be able to pay the mortgage soon and are hoping to sell before foreclosure.  If you live in the neighborhood, it is probably better to see these listings now instead of later when the bank owns the place. 

They fixer-uppers priced like grey houses may be priced high because that's the number that they need to sell for without bringing money to closing. 

I have no clue how bad the financial carnage is going to be this winter or whether people who know that it will be a rough winter are already consolidating households. 

[busymom]

The number of foreclosures is up in my neighborhood.  We had, IMHO, a real estate bubble here, and I think now is when it's going to burst.

[Cheesy FL-Vol]

Jul 7, 2020 10:19:49 GMT -5 bean29 said:

Do you think the houses were rentals and the landlords decided rentals with the prospect of the Gov't telling them they can't evict were a bad risk?  I live in WI and we have very little for sale that does not have an accepted offer on it in the Milwaukee area.  Hard to find much of anything around $200,000.

We are finding the same thing in our house hunt in NE TN. Anything decent in the 200k range is getting snapped up, sometimes in just a few hours. Our agent said one phenomenon is that people in our age bracket and up are often paying cash for inventory there. 

[TheOtherMe]

During the summer, I usually see at least 10 for sale signs in my subdivision.

Have not seen any this summer.  When I look at the city website, the only homes for sale are new builds.

[Iggy aka IG]

It's a seller's market here for sure, with very little inventory.  And houses are going for a ridiculous price in this area, IMO.  $300,000 for 1,200 sq ft?  Pft.  The good news is our home has increased in value nearly $100K in three years. 

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Summer is definite selling season around here, you rarely see for sale signs up until June, so have noted several for sale signs on houses driving into town.  In this subdivision, 2 houses have gone up for sale, both now have sold signs on them.  Both houses have lake views, so are $800k-$1 million.  TBH, unless you are retiring up here from either CA or Seattle, I don’t get how people are affording houses in this city as most salaries are not supporting these kind of prices.  

Even the undeveloped property we own next door has been appraised at $400k.  It was bought for $50k back in 1998 so no one could build there.  

[Deleted]

My neighborhood is huge and I’ve only seen a few houses for sale. One of them is next door to me. They had multiple offers as soon as they put it on the market. The offer they accepted was about $15k over the asking price.

[buystoys]

Not a lot of inventory around here (an hour outside Dallas) and a HUGE new housing development going in now.  Most of the industries in town were essential and there has been a need for workers for a couple of years now.  Looking at my bank's site, they value my house at a little over double what we paid for it.  I don't believe that number, but I do know 3/2 housing has appreciated quite a bit in this area.

[pooks]

Not much for sale around me.  We are thinking of downsizing, because houses are selling quickly in our neighborhood and the kid is going off to college(maybe).  But nowhere to go.  

The few houses that have come on the market, have sold really fast.  Demand for housing seems strong, for now.  Interest rates are historically low and I think people with stable incomes want more space than an apartment.  

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Jul 7, 2020 13:04:57 GMT -5 pooks said:

Not much for sale around me.  We are thinking of downsizing, because houses are selling quickly in our neighborhood and the kid is going off to college(maybe).  But nowhere to go.  

The few houses that have come on the market, have sold really fast.  Demand for housing seems strong, for now.  Interest rates are historically low and I think people with stable incomes want more space than an apartment.  

We do this exercise regularly, and the idea of selling gets shelved.  While we would get about 3x what was paid for the house, we would pay that (or more) for something smaller.  We like the neighborhood, we like the neighbors, we like the house and we know it will work fairly well to age in because I had a trial run while in a wheelchair.  

We joke that they’ll take us out in body bags!

[souldoubt]

We're in a somewhat similar situation to Mich.  The difference being we're in a townhouse and we'd like to get into a SFH.  We bought our place 8 years ago and if we were to sell now we'd get about 67% more than we paid.  Sounds great but the issue is we want to stay in the same area and houses have gone up just as much over the last 8 years.  There's low inventory in our desired area and price range but that's been the case for a while.  Some of the houses that come on are extremely dated, smaller inside than our current place and asking starts at 20% more than we could sell our place for.  Financially it makes no sense for us given what we pay for our current place, where prices are now along and the fact that we won't outgrow our place any time soon. 

[Tiny]

Jul 7, 2020 11:05:07 GMT -5 haapai said:

People might be listing houses because they know that they won't be able to pay the mortgage soon and are hoping to sell before foreclosure.    

That is a thought... it's possible that people have more equity in their mortgaged homes so it would make sense to try to sell the house rather than go thru a foreclosure.    

I'm also thinking that the hardest hit people are those in "non essential service" jobs - like entertainment, food services, and retail.   I'm not sure how many of those jobs pay enough to support home ownership - at least in my densely populated urban area.   I know plenty of two income families where the 2nd income is from  a  'entertainment, food services, or retail" job (which might not have been "full time", but very consistent in hours worked).   The job loss wasn't enough to scuttle their financial ship. 

I'm wondering if there is a bit of "it's a bright future!" for the people who retained their jobs/income and so are looking to upgrade their home (or be a first time buyer) due to confidence in their ability to maintain their job/income when the news squawks constantly about all the job losses and how bad it is 

I'm thinking it's going to be harder on the landlords who will have non-rent paying tenants and no bail out or recourse.  There's still a mortgage, taxes, and insurance, and upkeep to pay. 

[souldoubt]

There's still a decent number of white collar workers and even some blue collar workers who are facing the reality of reduced hours or being out of a job depending on how everything plays out.  Some of the white collar workers I know that were furloughed are back at work now but some aren't.  A family member is a blue collar worker who works for a local school district.  If schools aren't back in session then his reality is reduced hours at best because his work is done onsite and he's the main income in his household that has a mortgage.  Prior to COVID his job was considered extremely safe and the years he's worked towards a pension kept him from looking for another job or considering a move out of state.  Cities and states are facing lower revenues so their fiscal year and future projected budgets of 6 months ago are pretty much worthless.  Unlike the feds they can't print money and there's no way to pass all of the shortfall onto taxpayers as cuts will have to be made. 

[daisy]

Jul 7, 2020 11:24:08 GMT -5 Cheesy FL-Vol said:

Jul 7, 2020 10:19:49 GMT -5 bean29 said:

Do you think the houses were rentals and the landlords decided rentals with the prospect of the Gov't telling them they can't evict were a bad risk?  I live in WI and we have very little for sale that does not have an accepted offer on it in the Milwaukee area.  Hard to find much of anything around $200,000.

We are finding the same thing in our house hunt in NE TN. Anything decent in the 200k range is getting snapped up, sometimes in just a few hours. Our agent said one phenomenon is that people in our age bracket and up are often paying cash for inventory there. 

We jumped on a house on the Cumberland Plateau for $250k about a month ago, it had been listed for 3 days and our offer was one of two - they chose us. WHEW...everything else we had looked at had sold (except for the smoker's house, which I see now is pending).  Our agent down there said that things are super backed up inspection/appraisal wise because homes are selling so quickly.  Good luck with your NE TN house hunt! It's brutal out there. 

Here in SE WI, we listed our house (fixer on more than 10 acres at about the same money) on Wednesday, had 7 showings by Sunday and 3 offers.  Took the best offer, which was one of two over ask, and will be closing in 4 weeks.  We are about 30 minutes out of a major city and it was interesting that at least two of the buyers mentioned wanting to move out of said city, buy land and be more self-sufficient.  Our property is perfect for that, plus we are easily commutable to this city. Houses in our very rural area are selling VERY quickly, within days and often for over ask. 

[Malarky]

Jul 7, 2020 10:41:20 GMT -5 chiver78 said:

there is very little for sale in MA as well, which is discouraging b/c I'm looking to buy again soon. it seems like by the time I see it, it's under agreement in a day or so. 

Two houses on my street for sale.  We could be neighbors!!  

[Miss Tequila]

Inventory is very low in NEPA.

[Miss Tequila]

Jul 7, 2020 19:50:32 GMT -5 daisy said:

Jul 7, 2020 11:24:08 GMT -5 Cheesy FL-Vol said:

We are finding the same thing in our house hunt in NE TN. Anything decent in the 200k range is getting snapped up, sometimes in just a few hours. Our agent said one phenomenon is that people in our age bracket and up are often paying cash for inventory there. 

We jumped on a house on the Cumberland Plateau for $250k about a month ago, it had been listed for 3 days and our offer was one of two - they chose us. WHEW...everything else we had looked at had sold (except for the smoker's house, which I see now is pending).  Our agent down there said that things are super backed up inspection/appraisal wise because homes are selling so quickly.  Good luck with your NE TN house hunt! It's brutal out there. 

Here in SE WI, we listed our house (fixer on more than 10 acres at about the same money) on Wednesday, had 7 showings by Sunday and 3 offers.  Took the best offer, which was one of two over ask, and will be closing in 4 weeks.  We are about 30 minutes out of a major city and it was interesting that at least two of the buyers mentioned wanting to move out of said city, buy land and be more self-sufficient.  Our property is perfect for that, plus we are easily commutable to this city. Houses in our very rural area are selling VERY quickly, within days and often for over ask. 

Makes sense. With the riots and looting, the last place I want to be is near a big city. I want to be out in the middle of nowhere

[Ava]

I went to realtor.com and looked after reading this thread. Where I live I can see more or less the same amount of houses and condos for offer. If I look where my job is located, there's very few options and many of them are "contingent" or "pending"

[giramomma]

I looked at a lark. It appears housing prices in my area are very similar to 2008/2009, right before the RE bubble popped.

There's very little inventory in our parts as well.

I'm glad we bought when we did. There's no way I'm paying 250K for a 3 bed, 1100sq foot home.  Our house is 4bed, 1800 sq feet. I wouldn't even pay 250K for our house. (And we didn't. We waited patiently for the price to drop over 5ish months).

[chiver78]

Jul 7, 2020 19:58:34 GMT -5 Malarky said:

Jul 7, 2020 10:41:20 GMT -5 chiver78 said:

there is very little for sale in MA as well, which is discouraging b/c I'm looking to buy again soon. it seems like by the time I see it, it's under agreement in a day or so. 

Two houses on my street for sale.  We could be neighbors!!  

as much as I would love to have driveway tailgates with you and the family, I'm going back to the beach. it is even more crowded up here than it was when I left. 😒

[countrygirl2]

There is hardly anything here to buy or rent.
I swear they go on the market and if they are decent with what we think are to high prices they are pending.

I'm not sure who is buying all these houses. It's not like we have a lot of industry or some reason. But they are buying here like crazy. I have looked for a year for a nice home, there are a lot of those here they just never come up for sale.

We are still waffling, one day selling the little house the next renting it. When we are done going to have the realtor come and see what it will sell for. Hubs always thinks everything we sell isn't worth much. I always sell them for a lot more then he can believe. He even said tonight, now this little house will probably stand another 50 years. But he goes who would pay much for it with the old windows in it, oh my. Some people will not like it, some won't even notice, some will think the historical aspect is awesome, you just never know. He thinks all the behind the scenes work adds value, it does to an extent. But most people are visual and its all in "looks" not quality like it should be.

[nidena]

Turnover is fast here in Indy and inventory is low.  I just took one more property off the market today.  Yay, me! 

Other veterans have posted they've closed on their homes in the past couple weeks, across the country.  About a dozen just in the past seven days.  In the fb group that I'm part of, there's lots of talk of low inventory in the major cities in TX.  I'm sure it's similar in other major metro areas.