What do you think of your local Real Estate??

is the market in your area strong/ weak/ buyers market/ sellers market/ ect.ect.

Through the roof! 5 years ago I could of purchased an average house for 350,000 in my neighborhood now 1.5 million+ for the same houses. Hurricanes and all and people are still buying. South East Florida/ Northern Broward Beach Area. Dade and Broward way more expensive than Palm Beach these days! Location, location, location!

I live in Cold Lake, Alberta. The oil industry is booming here and the housing market has gone nuts. I make $55,000 CDN per year and cannot afford to buy a house here. A normal sized bungalow, approximately 1500 sq. ft. which would cost around $120,000 in my home town back in New Brunswick is double that if not more here in Cold Lake. Mobile homes are even selling at insane prices. I looked at one last fall that was going for $75,000 and it was a 20 minute drive from town. I am in the military and don't get the opportunity to work and get paid for overtime. The government has an option which is to give us a Post Living Differential. The get it on other bases. Not all of them mind you, but in places like Victoria, British Columbia, they get almost $500/ month over top of their regular pay. The government's reason for not giving this to us is the fact that we who work in the aircraft trades are already getting specialized trades pay which works out to about $200/ month. This is still nowhere near what we need to be able to keep up with the inflating housing costs.
I read a story in the news yesterday about a disabled woman in Calgary whose rent is going from $575/ month to $5,000/month. The reason her rent is jumping so high is because the company that owns her apartment building is gutting the building and constructing condos within the same infrastructure. Doesn't anyone have morals anymore or is it all about money. I know one thing for sure, the greedy will pay for it in the end. Kharma is a wonderful thing.

Market is slowing, still hella expensive
Hawaii

San Antonio, Texas -

I'm in the real estate title business. Although the number of home closings have declined a bit over the past year, they have only decreased by about 4% over all.

I know our residential escrow divisions are quite busy, telling me that sales are occurring steadily here. (I work in the commercial division of the company, so our busy-ness is a bit different.)

Home prices here are also good in my opinion. About 3 yrs ago when we were looking at homes, a brand new home approx 1400-1500 sq ft was running ~$125,000+ depending on ammenities. These were very nice homes too.

In addition, due to the military presence here there are quite a number of personnel that purchase homes but have to sell in a few short years due to transfer or deployment. So, there are "nearly new" homes to be had as well, and some of them (approx 1200-1600 sq ft) will run ~$85,000-$120,000, and are still in "new" condition. Older, more established homes are also very well priced (cost:value).

My parent's home is about 1400 sq ft, is at the end of a culdesac, has a huge yard, and is currently valued at ~$95,000. And their house is gorgeous... lushoushly landscaped with waterfalls, streams, bridges, and all kinds of trees, plants, flowers, etc. Plus, they've kept the house updated since they bought it (new) in 1976, and it still looks new.

I often watch shows that talk about and compare home prices in different areas of the country, and I'm always astounded at the home prices, including in our 'neighbor', Austin. I find myself very happy living in San Antonio, as our family feels it is a very affordable city in which to live.

I'm in Detroit, I think we're dead last, after Louisiana, in housing.

There are 6 houses on my block that have been up for sale for over a year. They have open houses with free food and can't get people to show up!

I dont know but I would like to know! anyone know where I can find that out?

My area was very strong for about the last 5 years,but is now cooling a bit. [Central California]

Strong here.....

Bloomsburg, pa

well maybe not after all the floods....ha-ha

virtually all over the usa, it has become such a bad buyer's market that agents are not able to meet their expenses. the trend is almost always like this: 2 years of a seller's market, meaning that buyers often submit bids simultaneously, creating "bid wars," or, that the seller is in the driver's seat, commanding the highest selling price for given real estate--then, normally, followed by FIVE years of a buyer's market. that means that sellers must wait a long time to get an offer, no matter how enticing their location and condition, even in low interest times. but i have never seen a market like the past 5 years! it was a SELLER'S market for 5 years, not the normal 2. now it is a very stagnant buyer's market that is not, for the first time in more than 50 years, tied one bit to the rise in interest rates, which are still very low. it is tied to the ever-increasing housing prices that occurred over that recent 5 year seller's market that ended one year ago.

sellers have the most stubborn attitudes on price in the first year or two following a seller's market! they do not listen to their agents, who show them proof of the drop in prices via public records within "comparable" sales of the last 6 months. they hold out and hold out, not getting an offer for months and months until they give up, or far worse, going to "buyowner dot com."

the reason i am against "buyowner.com" is because i know of hardly ANY normal person that is sophisticated enough in the true trade secrets that Realtors possess via long and hard years of work. I've gotten listings from them because people drive by their homes in the middle of the night, calling them at 3:00 a.m. to see the house, right then and there!

my recommendation is that you work with a very experienced, caring (agency-orientated) Realtor (we have a high code of ethics to get that designation opposed to other agents, or "licensees," those that only carry a salesperson/broker license but have not joined the National Assc of Realtors. i recommend that you, as a buyer, work with such a person because they will work very, very hard for YOU, to fit YOUR budget and housing NEEDS, including location, location, location.

our business is service, service, service, to YOU, whether you are acting as a seller or as a buyer. only an experienced Agent (look that word up in Oxford English Dictionery) knows the truth of the marketplace and will protect your negotiation secrets over and above their own interests. believe me. would you go to a
GP for brain surgery? A true Agent is like an attorney, there to protect YOU.

so go ahead and try to buy a place NOW. fyi: i coded, copyrighted a webpage called "the real estate industry in the united states," getting facts and figures from the US Census Bureau. Do you know that what you do, in PURCHASING, not refinancing, real estate, leads to the livings of about one-third of our population? i.e., from mining minerals from the ground to make morter to building buildings, selling them, and closing them (usually via a mortgage), you are contributing to a full approximate ONE-THIRD of our GNP!!!

there is a bad domino effect when people are not buying and selling real estate: so many people get laid off (unemployment rates are rising as we speak), then not having disposable income, which then affects all sorts of other people in the workplace until we go into Recession or worse, Depression.

yeppers, for sure, it is the 2nd year of what i think will be another total 5 years of a strong, strong buyer's market.

good luck and be happy with your decisions!

I don't know that much about Real Estate, but where I live it seems like I keep seeing more for sale signs up everyday and nobody buying, so the market seems pretty weak right now.

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