Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with housing and market

complex real estate cost benefit analysis needed

anonymous_account — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:51:46 -0800

Complex cost/benefit real estate question. We put our small, far suburban, now-overpriced house on the market two weeks ago. (Bought in '05.)

Because my wife has gotten a job, our income has doubled since buying our house, and we are saving $5k per month. However, her commute is lengthy, and we would like to move closer to the city, to lessen her commute, because now we can afford to, we know the target area better now, and we have friends in the city. Also, she may work more if we are closer, resulting in a higher income.

However, looking around at the other houses for sale in our area, I kind of doubt that our house will sell at the price which the realtor set for it, because there are nicer, bigger houses in better areas available for less or the same money. However, those are mostly foreclosures or short sales, which our realtor says takes a lot of time to buy, so maybe they are not that attractive to folks who are not real estate professionals.

We have $60k of our money in the bank and no debt except for our mortgage. We have $60k of my brother-in-law's money in the bank as seasoned assets, which he would like for us to use to buy the house. He is going to send $20k more soon. Later we could either pay him back, or he could continue to own part of our house (which I know is another big can of worms).

So what we will be faced with soon is: do we lower the price of our house (i.e., lose money on the house) in order to sell it? Although our house's price is depressed, the price of the house that we want to buy is also depressed. And I feel that we might be able to "save" more money on the purchase than we will lose on the sale...because the price of our house is only about 67% of the price of the type of house that we want to buy. We are not upside-down on the house --- our mortgage is 68% of the current asking price of our house.

Why are grownups always worrying about the housing market?

dino terror — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:55:51 -0800

Financial noob filter: Housing market fluctuations seem to have always been a big item, but to my noob mind I think "What do people care unless they are buying or selling a house?". I imagine the answer may be something to do with paying a mortgage on the house based on its previous 500k value when it is now worth only 300k. That or equity leverage. Can anyone clear this up for me?

Why is the UK Housing Market so different to the rest of Europe?

complience — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 02:44:31 -0800

Why is the UK Housing Market so different to the rest of Europe? Why is the British approach to the housing market so geared towards home ownership, where as european markets have much greater levels of long term rental.

Could the current high property prices in the UK be permanent and cause the UK house market to shift into a more European rental based system?

California Housing Market

matthelm — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 10:46:17 -0800

How does one monitor the Housing Market of Southern California? I would like to purchase a condo in the next couple of years and would like to know when the "best" time to buy is. I am a first time buyer and slowly picking up the knowledge to what it takes to buying a place.

Sell, rent, or stay put ?

ultraultraboomerang — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 13:30:07 -0800

I'm in a really weird housing market (Baton Rouge, LA). Should I get out and rent for awhile until it calms down? Any ideas about weighing capital gains tax vs. possible profit I might lose if prices nosedive before my 2 years are up? I know the housing market is weird everywhere, but this is really a unique situation so I thought I'd see if anyone had some unique perspective. Baton Rouge is about 70 miles west of New Orleans, and due to the great diaspora after Katrina housing prices went up around 26% here in just a few months. So did rent, incidentally, which is why I bought a fixer upper condo in July.

I'm getting really nervous about staying in a market that's so unpredictable and inflated, but I don't want to sell too early and end up paying a ton of capital gains taxes (a ton = rough estimate; I can't find any real idea of what rates are here).

Which is riskier: Staying put until my 2 years is up, hoping there isn't a huge crash? Or selling this summer and paying the tax on my profit (which probably won't be more than $10-15k)? Renting will cost around the same as my mortgage, so should I rent for awhile until things get a little less murky?

Social stigma in rich people's housing

acoutu — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 16:06:27 -0800

Will a child face social stigma for living in a condo? I live in Vancouver, Canada. The housing market here has gone wild. The average house price in the metro area is 757,750, but, in "nice" neighbourhoods, it's now about $1M. You could live further out, but the housing prices remain high, since people want more for their money. Also, living further out means you'd need 2 cars instead of one -- so add another $500+ a month.

My friends and I both currently live downtown. The schools downtown are pretty bad, so this isn't where we want to stay with our small children. Today, at a toddler group, a couple of us were discussing whether it made sense to move to a nice area and live in a condo, instead of a house. My friend (psychiatrist married to a chartered accountant) was concerned that her son would face social stigma for living in a condo when all the other families had houses. She was worried he'd be treated like a poor kid. I said that the people I knew who lived over there -- even the ones who'd bought before the upswing and had just $500k or $600k mortgages -- were struggling under the strain of their payments, rising interest rates, increasing fuel costs, and the like. I said her son and my son would be in a much better position to be the kids with nice clothes, vacations, trips to museums and all the things that you'd hope upper-middle class families would enjoy...except for a house. Meanwhile, the other kids would be from house poor families. However, I don't know if this is true. My husband and I are not originally upper-middle class and we grew up in small towns where everyone had houses.

So, what does AskMefi think? Will a child face social stigma for living in a swanky 2BR condo on the nice side of town, if their friends live in houses?