Houses Are Expensive!

The wife and I are putting the house on the market next week. Not a lot of houses out there to look at currently but boy are houses expensive these days! This is a good thing for my sale but wondering what kind of house we are going to be able to afford with these high prices. Obviously the further out you go away from the city the lower the costs become but there is give and take with that too. Should be an interesting/exciting few months for me and my family. Hoping all goes well.

My kid had 6 showings and 4 offers in the first 48 hours.

He is building a new house.

Dutchboy wrote:

My kid had 6 showings and 4 offers in the first 48 hours.

He is building a new house.

That’s great news for your boy! would be exciting to build. The wife wants to do that but I keep telling her it isn’t an option financially.

My point was if you have the house priced right be ready for offers. Your big task will be finding another home to move to. Many homes are over-priced (like the boat market) the ones priced to move are selling quick.

Good luck!

I could be wrong, but there seems to be some squeezing going on. The $250-300k homes are rising fast, but the $400k+ homes seem more stagnant. I have a 3.50% 30 yr fixed mortgage, so I am reluctant to give that away unless I am getting some big value somewhere else.

yeah my realtor says that there is a huge shortage of houses on the market and the houses priced 300k or less are flying off the shelves. houses over 300k not so much

Just had some family sell their home in St. Paul. Within 2 hours of listing it they had 23 offers and sold it for $26,000 over the list price.

We sold are house this year, before it hit MLS market. Sold it under 24hrs and above asking price. It depends on market and where you live.

I bought my house last year and am helping my sister buy hers now. If your’s is priced right Crappie I’d expect to see offers come in real quick. So you better get looking for a new one real quick, they are flying off the shelves to say with the way the market it. Offers for more than they are asking with crazy terms, no inspections, extra money down if appraisal is low, quick closing.

mnrabbit wrote:

Just had some family sell their home in St. Paul. Within 2 hours of listing it they had 23 offers and sold it for $26,000 over the list price.

I betcha I can tell you who bought it…

Crappie, I am in Excelsior and I just listed my place. I actually get scared looking at the prices of stuff on the market in our area. It use to be that the “northern” side of the lake was affordable but that day is long gone. The wife and I were looking to downsize after living in Europe for a few years (you quickly realize how little you can live with). However, what we bought our house for is now what you can get something half the size and not nearly as nice.

Not sure what we are going to do. We thought about renting for a couple year and trying to allow the market to “re-adjust” (they say it happens around every 10 years) but that is all speculation.

Best of luck with the house sale and hopefully you find something nice/affordable when the time comes.

Sounds like a great time to move north?

Nearly every business is hiring and we have great jobs and schools, not to mention there are a few good fishing lakes…

$300k can get you a very nice house sitting on a beautiful lake. My kids are swimming or fishing any chance they get. For example my son decided he’s sleeping in the fish house this week…

Dad had to say, well… ok

I’d be happy to have ya as a neighbor crappie

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House pricing is crazy. I bought my house 2.5 years ago and since than the value has went up $50k. Good luck and be ready to move fast. Fair priced homes are not on the market for long. I was told that there will soon be an 10% increase in wood lumber. So I guess prices will jump some more. But then again I find the price of almost everything to be crazy these days.

Crappie, help me understand how you put your existing house on the market, without your next house selected and ready to go? I see this has having a real possibility of settling for something you really don’t want, just because it’s available.

My wife and I built a new home last year, and waited until it was done before we listed and sold our existing house. As much as living in a van down by the river appealed to me, my wife, not so much.

HRG

We moved two years ago and bought the new house before we sold. Selling is not the problem, it’s finding a new house.

There is also no way we would have found what we wanted at a reasonable price without previous owners that neglected/destroyed the lawn and landscaping and did lots of “artsy” stuff inside.

Shop for bones, not skin.

Hot Runr Guy wrote:

Crappie, help me understand how you put your existing house on the market, without your next house selected and ready to go? I see this has having a real possibility of settling for something you really don’t want, just because it’s available.

My wife and I built a new home last year, and waited until it was done before we listed and sold our existing house. As much as living in a van down by the river appealed to me, my wife, not so much.

HRG

With how good the market is, if you buy based upon a contingent offer on your home you’ll probably lose the house you want. Probably better to sell yours, hopefully have some equity, and be ready to move quick on a house. Worst case, you move into a short term furnished apartment.

A little bit of the chicken and egg, though.

The wife and I have been thinking about selling our home, but the crazy market has kept us from following through. My realtor estimates us to make close to 100k from what we paid and put into it 3 years ago. After evaluating homes in the area we were looking to move, we realized the only benefit would be to have neighbors 300 yards away versus 50 feet…The houses in the budget were smaller, older, needed updating and the wife’s commute was “unreasonable”. So in the mean time, I’ll take my .5 acre lot with a 100% re-modeled home built in 79…Location isn’t the best, but I did all the work myself and it’s something I’m proud of.

I wish you luck in your search. A good friend of mine is looking for a home in the Apple Valley, Farmington, Rosemount area in the 200k range and he’s having one HECK of a time even getting to a showing before it’s sold…

That’s awesome Eagle. Hopefully I’ll be in your boat at some point. Been harping on the FW for years on a fixer upper, she’s finally coming around.

Our landlords decided to sell out of nowhere, we need to be out by June so may be rushed into a mortgage here.

Love the bones not skins comment. So true!

nhamm wrote:

Love the bones not skins comment. So true!

X2 That is what I told my wife when we were looking. Lots of things are easy to do, update, and change but the location of load bearing walls. The nice thing about doing a fixer-upper is you can tackle it one room or small item at a time and make it your style.

nhamm wrote:

Love the bones not skins comment. So true!

Also, buy the neighborhood. You can change the house, you can’t change the neighborhood or neighbors, once you’re in, you’re stuck with whatever’s there.

I almost had a major mistake with this. We were looking at a house and were ready to make an offer, but I decided we should go back without relators around for a 7:00 PM walk to see what the neighborhood was like after work and talk to the neighbors.

We were walking down the sidewalk and an MTC bus comes rolling up to the stop sign that’s 100 feet from the house. SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEATCH! Brakes screaming bloody murder. Then BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM, the bus’ crapped out Cummins blasts a huge cloud of diesel smoke as the bus roars away from the stop sign. All this would have been going on 18 hours a day, 2 busses an hour, about 100 feet from our front door. Game over. Dodged a bullet on that one.

People are always worried about getting a house and then having something go wrong with the house itself. More often than not, what I hear about “going wrong” is discovering that the neighbor has his own Swedish death metal band and they like to practice after bar closing.

Grouse

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

Also, buy the neighborhood. You can change the house, you can’t change the neighborhood or neighbors, once you’re in, you’re stuck with whatever’s there.

How True Grouse.
We bought many years ago… but after a showing, we knew we loved the home even though it was more than we planned on. We went back a couple quick times over the next two days and walked around the neighborhood… ended up meeting three of the four neighbors as they walked out to see who was in the hood that they didn’t know. All super nice, and really caring about who was around and such. They all have become good friends now that we live here. I love my location even more than the home.

Found out the neighborhood thing the hard way with our last house. 7 murders one summer within half mile, granted one was a triple homicide so not 7 different instances? Then the house bubble popped

Really haven’t looked forward to home ownership since, still bitter I guess.

Section 8 and rental properties are the biggest no-nos on my list next time around.

Crappie good luck to you and your family. I think we both will need it. Buying a house shouldn’t be a competition for 50 families wanting in, but it is what it is.

DaveB wrote:

I could be wrong, but there seems to be some squeezing going on. The $250-300k homes are rising fast, but the $400k+ homes seem more stagnant. I have a 3.50% 30 yr fixed mortgage, so I am reluctant to give that away unless I am getting some big value somewhere else.

I bought a bigger house and sold a smaller one two years ago. I totally agree with the squeezing thing. I found my new house before I sold the old one and it worked well. I highly recommend it, especially if you’re buying a more expensive home than you’re selling.

2 divorces in 5 years, bought it twice, yep they are expensive!

^ouch

I’ve been considering moving and want a small acreage sooo bad, but not willing to sign into a 400-500k mortgage.

Lived in my place for a little over three years, guessing the price has gone up 60 maybe 70k (low 300’s now). Problem is all the other places have gone up the same amount, so even a lateral move and I’d be taking a step down in quality I feel if/when I move.

I accidentally sold my house this fall. We found a nice house with 20 acres of good hunting land, lake access, at a reasonable price. Our realtor said we needed to be “non-contingent” to even have a chance at it. We put our house on the market, it sold in 6hours with a 3 1/2 week closing date. We thought great. We then got into a bidding war on the new house, and had to bow out when we were $40k over asking price. So there I sat….. Myself, Wife, two kids and a dog. We had to pack, and find somewhere to live in 3 1/2 weeks. I wouldn’t wish that stress on anyone. We got so lucky finding a rental after 2 weeks that would let us have a dog. We are currently renting looking for something to buy. If we don’t find anything by mid summer we most likely will build then. My employment situation doesn’t help the house finding, since per a union agreement, if I want advancement in my career I must be within 20 miles of my place of work. Currently I am 22 miles out. Let’s just say our living arrangement now is making us a very close family. It will make us appreciate our next home that much more though.

10 years ago we bought ours during the foreclosure days for 212k. Now we could easily get around 350k. We maybe put in 10k on improvements and 5k was for a new roof so we could make over 130k with my minnesota math. funny how that works.

eyeguy507 wrote:

10 years ago we bought ours during the foreclosure days for 212k. Now we could easily get around 350k. We maybe put in 10k on improvements and 5k was for a new roof so we could make over 130k with my minnesota math. funny how that works.

While your Minnesota math works today it might be a totally different number next year. I can only hope the market doesn’t totally go in the tank when I’m ready to sell. For us it will be from here into a old folks home unless of course one of the kids kicks us out and takes the house.

If you choose to swap time in your car for more house that is a terrible exchange-the most valuable thing you have by far is your time. Move up north, get a job up north-good idea; hours commuting? Not so good. IMHO. Good luck