Around $400K. It's ridiculous here. I'm a few hours away from Seattle and bought a new construction sfh for slightly more than 15-20 yr old sfh are going for (because bidding wars get them at least 10-15k over asking). Low inventory sellers market over here. But I got a 2.8 interest rate. So.
What make it ridiculous? Genuine question. Are those high prices for the area?
The prices for the sq ft sfh were were looking for went up roughly 100k between March and August/September. I know low inventory and great interest rates drove that.
Post by notsopicky on Oct 27, 2020 21:51:54 GMT -5
$600K or so (close in suburb to DC, on VA side). For comparison, a 1700 sf waterfront/pool home 90 minutes from DC (Fredericksburg, VA suburbs) went for $460K.
Post by DotAndBuzz on Oct 27, 2020 22:01:53 GMT -5
In my little pocket, it depends a lot on where, specifically, you want to live.
The cool historic area walkable to town, or the mid century modern, super wooded area, built into the hills, that will run you about 650-800k
New build is around 425-450k
20 year old house in a development (but still mature trees, and landscaping, just not amazing historic homes with character, and tighter together), closer to 350-400k
I do love it here. If you can deal with snow and gray for 4 months, the trade off is no natural disasters. And we have a great airport with tons of direct flights, so you can easily gtfo when needed
I would have agreed with you until now so many big trends are pointing at WFH forever, please go to wherever you want to live and we’ll let go of our insane downtown real estate and it’ll take a while to get economy going in these vhcol cities where housing might drop.
Or not. Who knows.
The Bay Area is weird though because the market is driven by young techies, and I have a feeling many will come back once offices start reopening again. Where else are they going to go? My company (and many others) have already said they plan to cut salaries by as much as 20% (and perhaps more) if you choose to WFH from another state.
Now, granted, a 20% pay cut against a 50-75% cut in housing prices miiiight tip the balance. But young, single people still want to live in cities. If we’re competing against anywhere, it’s still generally higher COL places like Denver/Boulder, Portland, Seattle, maybe Austin.
Anyway. H keeps telling me we should stick it out because once life is “normal” again, I’d still choose working from an office over WFH (I hate WFH.) I’d still choose proximity to a major metro area over being out in the boonies. And truthfully, I don’t see the rush to decide now. If the market goes up, we have more equity; if the market goes down, we have more buying power. I don’t see a downside to waiting out the frenzy.
I’m super interested in how much WFH is going to be the norm. Twitter has said they’re going to WFH model permanently. FB used to be pretty strict about folks working at their Menlo Park offices or other hubs, but now they’re hiring folks to work remotely. Even before the pandemic, they recognized they couldn’t always attract talent by requiring relocation to the Bay Area. Plus the campuses are so big, folks ended up dialing into meetings from their desks instead of attending meetings in other buildings in person.
The role I’m in with a big tech company is remote because they were having a hard time getting talent in NYC, and the big tech company I just left, headquartered in Seattle, has also relaxed its location requirements.
Yet there’d been a shift away from remote work in tech with the emphasis on agile processes.
So, all of which is to say, I’m interested in how this all shakes out.
Post by goldengirlz on Oct 27, 2020 23:02:35 GMT -5
One more thought.
I would not want to move to a state that’s not taking Covid as seriously as we are. Things may be locked down, but at least wherever we do go, you see pretty close to 100% mask compliance.
Our house in a city-adjacent suburb of Denver is about 2300sf and we bought it in 2019 for $475. Seems like similar properties are appraising now for roughly $500.
Our house has many updates and was generally well maintained, but two of the three bathrooms need a good overhaul.
ETA: I’m guessing the same thing in the city would be at least $700, probably a decent bit more depending on the neighborhood and general area.
I would not want to move to a state that’s not taking Covid as seriously as we are. Things may be locked down, but at least wherever we do go, you see pretty close to 100% mask compliance.
My cousin just moved from Colorado to California. She’s an ICU nurse and had been treating Covid patients here. She said it’s like night and day with mask compliance the restrictions that are in place there. Colorado did ok, but not as well as I had hoped and now things are spinning out of control. You guys have it good on the covid front, that’s for sure.
This is depressing. An older (Pre-1950s) detached house of that size is 2-3 million in my area, and down to 1.5 million in a few neighbourhoods, but on much smaller lots, and at that rate, the value is nearly all in the land. Tax ranges from $6000-$12 000 from what I’ve seen, depending on where it is and the lot size.
$200k-$250k for an older/less updated home (late 90s - early 200s), new construction can go as high as $400k depending on finishes.
This is in a rural, very red area, without good access to travel hubs or retail or close to any major employers. The school district is actually pretty good/diverse, but the teachers are just as red as your neighbors.
$600-$700k will get you a 2,000 sq foot basic builder construction with no renovations from the 80s. It’s depressing. I’m in the DC burbs. I do like it here, but man I get jealous when I hear people get new construction for under $600k.
The market is a little crazy now. Our neighborhood stuff has been selling within a week for about $100k more than it was pre-COVID. I can’t imagine it will last, but if it does then great! Equity for us as we’re staying put.
We’d like to buy a beach house but that’s definitely on hold in this market as those prices are crazy and I can’t imagine it will last there either. Once people can travel again I think they will want to offload their vacation homes.
In our neighborhood/school district, around $400k+ - the market has been tight this year and things have been going for over asking, but I'm grateful to live somewhere with a moderate COL at least. Most houses in my town are under 2000 sq ft though - mine is 1400. I'm also outside Philly, walking distance to the commuter rail, so its a good overall location.
In my immediate area, around $250k-500k. The STL area is a weird patchwork though, with a ton of towns and cities carved out of relatively small areas. Going a mile in any direction could change home cost and value a lot. Also, while I’m not sure I believe this, I’ve heard from people that have moved to the area in the past that housing prices are “high” compared to other similarly sized/similar COL areas.
I live across the river in one of the "nicer" (read that as "mostly white") towns and our prices are around $75-100K less than the Missouri side for equivalent homes. Our house would easily be $400K and up in West County, but we paid $300K. Property taxes are higher, though.
In my immediate area, around $250k-500k. The STL area is a weird patchwork though, with a ton of towns and cities carved out of relatively small areas. Going a mile in any direction could change home cost and value a lot. Also, while I’m not sure I believe this, I’ve heard from people that have moved to the area in the past that housing prices are “high” compared to other similarly sized/similar COL areas.
I live across the river in one of the "nicer" (read that as "mostly white") towns and our prices are around $75-100K less than the Missouri side for equivalent homes. Our house would easily be $400K and up in West County, but we paid $300K. Property taxes are higher, though.
Yeah, there are definitely pockets in STL Country that are nutty - Webster comes to mind. I’m just across the *other* river in STCC, which definitely improved our bang-for-the-buck. But, it’s a purple-to-red area, so that was a shitty tradeoff.
250-400K depending on the specific suburb. I can get a house with an indoor pool for 650k.
We have culture, and diversity, (blue, purple, or red depending on suburb). Everything that CA has, but we have winter and snow which I’m not a fan of winter.
Yikes! I guess that's why we didn't even consider a single family home, lol. As first time homebuyers that would have been difficult to even pay for down payment/closing. There are some really beautiful homes around here though. I really hope you find something you love! I think you'd like living here. We do so far!
My parents/sister live in a suburb about 45 minutes outside of Houston. They both live in brand new, 2500ish square foot homes and paid around 230k. It kills me to think that we paid more than that for our little outdated townhouse. I would hands down rather live in the state and town where we do, though.
I was going to say, "but they have to live 45 minutes outside of Houston." Barf. And I say that as someone who lives 20 minutes outside of Dallas lol.
Exactly. To be fair, there are some nice suburbs around Houston, but where my family lives is fairly rural and too far from the stuff I'd enjoy. Plus it's in Texas. Sorry, Texans, but I just don't see myself living there.
$400k for nothing fancy, but livable (think 1970 build homes) in Northern Colorado. New homes are $600k, but there is no way I'd buy a new home here.
ETA: I'm adding this because it's specific regional tidbit, new home developers are having a hard time getting water rights for their developments. So what's happening is people are paying $400k for the older homes and scraping and rebuilding with bigger monstrosities that don't fit into the neighborhoods.
I'm about 45 minutes outside of Philly in the Western Burbs. My house comes in at around 1600 sq ft and has 4 bedrooms, 1.5 bath, and the original kitchen from 1973. Our house just recently appraised for $340K, so I'd imagine that a slightly bigger house that is more updated would be at least around $400K in this area, if not more.
That said, the county I use to live in is much closer to the city. My former house has just about the same stats as my current house but with an updated kitchen and is only valued around $250K.