I picked a bad decade to buy a house .....

Bought in summer of 05 as investment. saw the bloodbath coming (blogs!! - no kidding, there are some FANTASTIC housing blogs out there) and sold in september of 06. put it on the market overpriced for a week ... got one bite (lowball). lowered it 30k, got an offer that day, sold it.

made solid profit, but ill get hammered in taxes in about a month when i file.

combing profit with wife's savings to buy another one at the end of this summer - when there will probably be plenty of foreclosures to be had.

all those folks who bought using ARM loans in the boom times of 2004/2005 will find mortgages too high to pay ... and some will probably have to end up walking away from their house.

they're calling for a recession .. so i'd say save, save, save ...

 

A lot of this is relative also. Home sales are down 8% from the end of an incredible run, but that's still a helluva lot of houses. My guess is that the total number of homes sold in 2006 would have given any realtor a wet dream anytime during the 80s or 90s.

 

Why on earth are so many people with ARMS in trouble?

Interest rates are still at historic lows. Refinance to a fixed.

My goodness, if you can't afford a 6.5% fixed-rate mortgage, you had zero business buying a house in the first place (or buying more house than you could afford).

 

Half-point a year is good.

I seem to recall a typical ARM cap being about 2 points a year a while back.

 

Location still counts for something no matter what the market is doing. My house is triangulated by three schools, so I'm not too worried about selling when that day comes.

 

I've bought exactly one house in my life, so maybe this is a stupid question, but I've got to ask: If you bought within the last five years or so, when interest rates hit historic lows, why would you elect for an ARM? That didn't make any sense to me. I locked in at a pretty good time (about 1/8th of a point above the bottom of the valley) and I'm in even better shape now that the rates have gone up. If I'd taken the ARM and started a little lower, I'd still be paying well above what I'm paying now in interest.

 

Really glad I'm fixed at five percent. Though I'm thinking of refinancing to get some bills paid off, and still will insist on a fixed loan.

I find that my market depends on the influx of retirees or "California millionaires," who sell a house in California for over $500K and buy a $150K five-bedroom house here like it was nothing.

 

I hate those fucking Californians who move in and drive up housing prices. No comparable increase in salary for those of us who have to work out West. Fucking Californians.

 

That doesn't bother me so much. What bothers me are the local yokel pinheads in public office and the chamber of commerce try to say that it's a sign of great growth in the area and that the economy is booming.

Well, not really. While they pay cash for these houses and spend the rest around town, most of the people are living off the profit of the California house. There's growth in the new housing market, but that's it. It's not like there are thousands of great well-paying jobs popping up suddenly. I know about five people on my block who are from California and don't have to work because of this situation. But that's what these local assholes would have you believe.

If all that growth was really happening, I wouldn't have to worry about moving out of the area if I want to change careers or find another job.

 

Me neither, which is why I went with the 30-year fixed when I bought my home in July 2004. Only problem was that I came across an opportunity I simply couldn't pass up last February, so I moved and put the house on the market less than two years after I bought it. I thought that with all the improvements I made to my house with my father, I could put it on the market for $5,000 more than what I bought it for then.

Uh, no. I dropped the price after two months, then dropped it again after another two months, then once more down to within $2,000 above the price at bought it for two years ago. I thought I might have to get my dad to drive out to the house -- it sat vacant, I didn't want the bother with renting it for a family to destroy, or for someone to build their own meth lab -- to winterize the house.

That's when someone put in an offer for the house -- full price, though I had to cover the closing costs. Fair enough, just take it off my hands and make sure that I don't have to worry about the house, the utilities and all the worry that went along with it anymore.

The turning point came when my mom suggested that I pray to St. Joseph. What you do is get a St. Joseph statue, get somebody to bless it and bury it upside down in your yard. (I called my old priest Father Blick, who agreed to do that for me, and I cannot thank him enough.) After that, you've got to pray to St. Joseph and simply believe that someone will buy your house. Within a month, someone offered full price. For anyone trying to sell their home now, I seriously suggest you put your faith in St. Joseph. He's worth a shot.

With the wedding coming this summer, and with home prices dropping like crazy, we're definitely saving up to buy a home and get away from apartment life forever. Perfect timing for us, not so much for anyone with a home still on the market.

 

buck, you sell yourself short (insert smiley thingie here)

 

I've got nothing against them. They played the system right and won. I just can't stand how the locals play it up as progress where there really is none.