Yet, people are somehow still able to pay $$$$$ for housing. Demand is still strong. I don’t understand the disconnect.
I don’t get it either. A house in my hood sold for 40% more than I paid in 2014. What in the actual fuck?!?!
And like, it’s one thing if everything else’s costs were steady and we could sell our home to buy a more expensive one and prepare for the new mortgage. But with the prices of everything else, I can’t fathom how so many people out there are still able to pay these prices while also dealing with the astronomical costs of everything else. Must be nice lol.
Yet, people are somehow still able to pay $$$$$ for housing. Demand is still strong. I don’t understand the disconnect.
In my experience, it’s a lot of people moving from more expensive markets (ie: California, NY, etc) to less expensive markets. In some cases it’s the tech industry expanding into new areas, in other cases it’s the growth of telework allowing people to move to a less expensive area or to be close to family or whatever. If you sell your home in CA for over $1M, you’ll have plenty of cash to to pay for a $700k house somewhere else (and it’ll probably be twice as big).
Also, for those of us like my family who are both selling AND buying it’s not too bad as long as you’re moving to a similar market. We made lots of money, then turned around and put it all into a new house…so it wasn’t TOO painful.
But for first-time home buyers, this shit is unreal. I feel awful for people who haven’t been on the property ladder for a while. We made more money on our home in the last four years than my husband made in salary in that time…by a LOT (he’s a teacher). The average salary just can’t keep pace with the rise in home prices.
Yet, people are somehow still able to pay $$$$$ for housing. Demand is still strong. I don’t understand the disconnect.
In my experience, it’s a lot of people moving from more expensive markets (ie: California, NY, etc) to less expensive markets. In some cases it’s the tech industry expanding into new areas, in other cases it’s the growth of telework allowing people to move to a less expensive area or to be close to family or whatever. If you sell your home in CA for over $1M, you’ll have plenty of cash to to pay for a $700k house somewhere else (and it’ll probably be twice as big).
Yes but for those of us in already expensive market (NYC metro suburbs), it's bonkers. Our town was already pricy when we bought in 2016, and now I feel like we got a bargain. We paid $525k for a nice sized 4 bedroom colonial with a 2 car garage. Last night a local realtor was telling us how even she was shocked that her client's 3 bedroom split level (I'm certain it has 1 or 0 garages) sold for $759K recently. And these are families buying the houses, not investors or flippers.
Post by cheeseplease on May 21, 2022 9:35:01 GMT -5
You are not the only one, it is crazy and scary. I am alone/single so its just me which in some instances are good but there is no backup if something goes awry.
I stopped at Publix for a couple things and said to myself that it seems that they (they as in retailers) are just raising some prices just because they can. Like, what are we going to do? Not buy food?
I live near Tampa which always had decent cost of living but during the pandemic it, and all of Florida, just flooded with people from out of state and housing is no longer affordable to anyone that has been here for years and have been surviving on Florida low wages. Its no longer feasible for that type of person. It's not so bad in case mentioned above if you sold a house in what was once an expensive market, come here and pay cash for a house and put a chunk of cash in the bank. Can't blame anyone though, I'd do the same if given the opportunity. I was considering trying to apply for a promotion for my company and move to Nashville but then I looked at housing costs there and its just as bad as here.
We just need something positive to happen. WHEN was the last time that something positive happened outside of cheeseface getting voted out?
I have certainly noticed our food and gas bills increasing. Luckily DH works from home so he hardly drives. I have noticed our food bills going up every week as well as supply issues. Some things went away during Covid and never came back. When things are on sale at the store they aren’t in stock.
I looked last night at flights to go to San Francisco to visit two of my college friends. I was supposed to see one of them yesterday when she was near me for work, but then my son got covid, and then I did, we're all still in isolation, so that obviously got scrapped. I haven't seen her since March 2019, so I was super bummed.
Anyway, the flights - OMG. Double to triple what it was last time I went. I have a ton of CSP points built up from 2 years of not traveling anywhere, so I can still do it, but ouch.
We are definitely curbing our weekends of leisurely eating out this summer. Went out last night with friends for drinks and three little tapas to pick off of.
Well unknown to us the restaurant charged a 20% service charge and of course everyone wants a tip (I don’t blame them)… but we can’t pay 40% more for a happy hour. Just not feasible.
I’ve noticed places that didn’t have a tip culture have added that post pandemic think ‘fast casuals’ such as Chipotle or the like.
So I will find some fun meals to cook up on the weekends. It’s just the two of us and I shop on Amazon fresh to keep things in check. We don’t always buy what we want, but we have what we need, and I’m greatful for that.
I am happy our travels until March 2023 are booked up. We use Scotts Cheap Flights and keep a list of places we wish to see. When a deal comes around, we book it quickly. No way would we want to pay current flight prices. But I’m paying them for work and my travel budget is out of wack.
We don’t own, but we are talking about it. Planning to take a step back and reevaluate as my H works from home and I want to WFH at my next job. No need to buy in DC if we don’t need to.
I'm fortunate enough that we'll weather these price increases ok. We'll cut back on extras. My worry is for other people. And the inevitable cratering to come re real estate and stocks.
The house across the street from me, which is a total tear down, sold for $650k. So, a .3 acre lot sold for $650k. That's. Not. Sustainable.
Our food costs started rising drastically last November because there was massive flooding cutting off all routes from the coast to the interior. While waiting for companies to reroute shipments, we had food shortages on frozen and canned items, astronomical prices for terrible produce. It’s only gotten worse this spring. The lady ringing me out last week pointed out that sizes have gone down, but we’re paying more. I hadn’t noticed, but now definitely do. Frozen fruit used to be $3 for 600g, now it’s $5 for 400g.
Gas is ~$7.70/gallon here, $2.08/L which is not the highest in Canada.
Yet, people are somehow still able to pay $$$$$ for housing. Demand is still strong. I don’t understand the disconnect.
In my experience, it’s a lot of people moving from more expensive markets (ie: California, NY, etc) to less expensive markets. In some cases it’s the tech industry expanding into new areas, in other cases it’s the growth of telework allowing people to move to a less expensive area or to be close to family or whatever. If you sell your home in CA for over $1M, you’ll have plenty of cash to to pay for a $700k house somewhere else (and it’ll probably be twice as big).
Also, for those of us like my family who are both selling AND buying it’s not too bad as long as you’re moving to a similar market. We made lots of money, then turned around and put it all into a new house…so it wasn’t TOO painful.
But for first-time home buyers, this shit is unreal. I feel awful for people who haven’t been on the property ladder for a while. We made more money on our home in the last four years than my husband made in salary in that time…by a LOT (he’s a teacher). The average salary just can’t keep pace with the rise in home prices.
Yep. My family moved from the Seattle area to central WA state to be closer to family as my H's company went fully remote. We bought a house twice as big, got solar and an EV for what we sold our TH for. Our house here is a brand new construction home. We also moved out of the Seattle are because we were priced out of everything and our small 2bed TH wasn't going to work for H to WFH indefinitely.
I have friends still in the Seattle area trying to buy for the first time. The house they're closing on is an older home, under 800sq ft and needs a lot of work. That's all they can afford.
It’s not just the increases, but the rate of the increases. Some of our groceries are going up 25% or so. It’s going to hurt so many people. We’ve always had a tight budget, despite making decent money. We’re also reaching a point where our “brand new” house is 13 years old, so things are starting to need immediate attention (like that pipe that bused 2 weeks ago, resulting in a cut out of drywall in my basement ceiling that’s just going to be that way for a while)
Two houses in our neighborhood have sold recently for easily $50-70,000 over what they would have sold for a year ago. I’m terrified to get our next tax assessment/valuation. I DO NOT live in a pricey, fancy neighborhood!
Even my super liberal DH is bashing the Dems and saying things like “he’s an ass, but we could pay our bills and fill our gas tanks”
Post by plutosmoon on May 21, 2022 11:04:22 GMT -5
I make entirely too much money to be this broke, but these prices are killing me. I'm back to mostly paycheck to paycheck, which is a huge blow after saving so much money over the last year. I could cut back on things like dance for DD, but I'm not willing to do that to her at this point. I still have choices, but I was already fugal to be able to make those choices. My rent is like 40% of my take home pay, I'm holding my breath as a month to month renter it doesn't go up. When I do find a house to buy again, it will probably be similar. I need to find a home to buy, so I'll cut back elsewhere to buy said home if need be. My grocery budget is $100/week, so I'm already bare bones there. DD gets free breakfast and lunch at school and daycare/aftercare includes food, so I've been able to stick to that. I'm qualified for a few subsidy programs like affordable internet and p-ebt which should be sending some money next week, these help a bit.
Remote workers from Boston and NYC and airbnb investors have driven our home prices up significantly. Homes are mostly in the mid to high 200s, handful in the low 300s, up from mid to high 100s. There is a house for sale I looked at in 2021, it sold for $265k in 2021 and now they are asking $325k. It wasn't affordable to me in 2021 at $265k and I make more than the median income of my city, who is buying at 325K? Airbnbs have destroyed the local year round rental market, we don't really have apartment complexes here, so the private landlords are opting for short term rentals instead. I belong to a facebook group for rentals in my county and no one posts apartments for rent much anymore, it's all people getting kicked out and looking for a new place to live. A lot of the comments include legal tips about over staying even if the landlord is kicking you out.
My heating bill over the winter nearly broke me. We used to do a lot of day trips, but gas prices are keeping us home.
Post by Jalapeñomel on May 21, 2022 11:21:30 GMT -5
Between daycare and gas prices, we are feeling the increase hard.
I accidentally paid a bill from the wrong account last week, and got dinged with a NSF charge. I was so angry, because I have the money, and now I have to pay a $30 fee for absolutely no reason.
Post by Velar Fricative on May 21, 2022 11:30:44 GMT -5
I also freak out about how the job economy will continue to impact this. Many industries can’t find enough workers to do jobs, and the ones they can find have to get paid more. Obviously, higher wages are a good thing but of course companies use it as a reason to pass on those costs to consumers. And then we are going to have to become accustomed to seeing fewer options and products because there are fewer workers in general. That’s already what we see - the formula shortage is an actual crisis, but even just the usual variety of products are not there. We got used to variety and convenience in our lifetimes and now that’s disrupted, probably forever.
It feels like the global reset button was pressed in March 2020 but we had no idea what would happen beyond covid. No wonder major global geopolitical events tend to coincide with or follow pandemics.
If things don’t turn around there’s no way those elections will go well. 😭
Yes, and that terrifies me. I mentioned in my thread about flights that I read gas could go up to $6 nationwide by the end of summer and I was at panic attack level anxiety all day yesterday.
W.T.Faulkner is totally right, they need a rude awakening but I'm just scared if Republicans win in November.
I had been meaning to get passports for all of us for years and just haven't (see Hs unemployment!) But mine and SD1s are in progress. We filed the paperwork a week after the leaked SCOTUS ruling. SD2 lost her birth cert after boot camp, waiting on the replacement and then I'll get hers and DSs.
We already have $6 gas. If it goes any higher I’m going to cry. DH has a 72 mile RT commute and he absolutely LOVES his job so finding a new one is out of the question. For reasons, so is moving closer.
The gas prices are bonkers! Food prices have gone up and I still can’t find some regular items in the store at times so that makes it extra frustrating because I’m driving around looking for basics like hot dog rolls. This area has always been very expensive for food and entertainment so it’s probably not as big of a jump as it is for other people. We are lucky that we don’t have kids and I have time to research deals and shop around. It’s a lot!
We are doing okay because since Covid is still around we never returned to big travel, eating in restaurants, going to indoor concerts or events so we’ve been saving for years with that now. We get take out every once in a while but we used to go out every weekend, go to a ton of concerts and festivals every year plus travel. Now it’s more parks and game nights with friends which is much cheaper. It’s not great to be spending more but it’s still cheaper than going out. I am making sure to buy food when it’s on sale again. For a while there I wasn’t making as much effort as I had in the before times.
I do dread having anything done to the house! I’m glad we had our roof done earlier in the pandemic because that was already an inflated price and I bet it went up even more. I’m just putting off little things as long as I can.
Post by dancingirl21 on May 21, 2022 11:48:54 GMT -5
It’s scary. H’s company had a fantastic year last year so his bonus and raise were large. We stuck the bonus in savings and are using it only for our $$$ property taxes and sitting on the rest.
We spend a lot on groceries and I’m noticing things going up a ton.
My sister is getting married in October. It’s a quick 2 hour flight or a 15 hour drive. To fly to Charleston, where she lives, is currently over $2300 for the 4 of us, plus the cost of an Airbnb for 3 nights, and rental cars are around $5-600 for a regular small car. It’s going to cost a fortune. DH and I are seriously considering driving if flight prices don’t come down. We don’t want to, but also can’t justify spending nearly $5k for 3 days. Ugh.
We also have a trip planned to Cancun in November for DH’s 40th birthday for the 4 of us. Thankfully DH has something like 150k miles sitting in his United account so that should get us hopefully 2 tickets.
We are just bracing for a recession and I’m scared.
Yet, people are somehow still able to pay $$$$$ for housing. Demand is still strong. I don’t understand the disconnect.
Housing prices are still bonkers but I think they may be cresting, at least here.
Anecdotal, but we had stopped looking because we couldn’t find anything in our budget — and now I’m getting alerts for houses in our (former) price range. And when we go to open houses and chat with realtors, they say the bidding wars aren’t as crazy as they were a few months ago. And spring usually means the opposite.
(Despite casually going to open houses, I don’t think we could justify spending anywhere near what we had planned to spend when interest rates were lower and stocks were higher. And prices are very much still insanity. But if I were betting on the market, I think it would be more likely to come down than anything else.)
I tried to be optimistic for awhile, but I just decided that this is my last summer enjoying the teacher summer off. My salary will creep up a tiny bit each year and it’s just not going to cut it. Not to mention I got divorced in Oct 2020 and have been stuck in an $$$ townhouse rental because the housing market is so awful. I feel like I am waiting to start my life with just the house situation and the costs of literally everything else are like a gut punch.
Yet, people are somehow still able to pay $$$$$ for housing. Demand is still strong. I don’t understand the disconnect.
Housing prices are still bonkers but I think they may be cresting, at least here.
Anecdotal, but we had stopped looking because we couldn’t find anything in our budget — and now I’m getting alerts for houses in our (former) price range. And when we go to open houses and chat with realtors, they say the bidding wars aren’t as crazy as they were a few months ago. And spring usually means the opposite.
(Despite casually going to open houses, I don’t think we could justify spending anywhere near what we had planned to spend when interest rates were lower and stocks were higher. And prices are very much still insanity. But if were betting on the market, I think it would be more likely to come down than anything else.)
I'm really curious to see what prices do in Colorado.
A few months ago, a house 3 doors down from us sold for about $660. It's comparably sized to ours and updated, like ours. We bought our house in 2019 for $475. I just checked realtor.com and there's one just on the other side of the park from us that looks really similar to our house. It's 100sf bigger, but actually has one less bedroom since we added a conforming bedroom in our basement for DH to use as an office. It is listed for $660. I'll be watching to see what it sells for.
Realtor.com says our home is worth $657, which is right in line with these comps. That's a 38% increase over what we bought it for 3 years ago.
I am so thankful we were able to get into the market when we did. We thought we were buying at the top of the market when we bought our first house in 2014. There is literally no way we would be able to buy a house now, even with our salaries, if we didn't have the equity from our previous homes.
Grocery prices are crazy. I do the bulk of my shopping at Aldi and when you can feel their price increases, you know it's crisis level. I work for a small business and their plan has been to sell everything and relocate over the next 2 years. It would be a good timeframe for me. I work part time now and would be ready to work full time then, have time to finish a designation I'm working on, and have my husband change gears in his career. Real estate prices are insane here and now I'm afraid now that they are just going to cut and run any day and I will never find a gem of a part time job like this. Things were really, really tight before I started this job but now we could no longer get by without it.
It's crazy how real estate has increased. It was always a HCOL area, but my town was one of the more affordable ones. We paid $270 for our house in 2008. Prices were way down then and it's a very small house, but the value never really increased at all (according to Zillow) until Covid. Today it's estimated at $425. A house on my block sold for $675. It's bigger than our house, but still small kitchen and living room. Very small yard. These houses aren't worth this money and the neighborhood definitely isn't worth this money.
Thank you for posting this. I’m feeling it too and it’s making me so anxious. I buy the same general grocery list every week. It used to cost $160. Now it’s closer to $230-240 every time.
I also tried to get a flight to see my family this summer (who we’ve seen ONCE since the pandemic started and flights were impossible to find and so much money. I can’t even do it
I’m saving up for an EV but it’ll take another year before I get there. Fortunately, we don’t drive that much (we live in a city).
My city just released property tax info for next year and it’s ABSURD. 31% increases on a average, and some neighborhoods are looking at >60% increases. These are, of course, the poorest neighborhoods and people are going to lose their homes. It’s infuriating.
"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
I tried to be optimistic for awhile, but I just decided that this is my last summer enjoying the teacher summer off. My salary will creep up a tiny bit each year and it’s just not going to cut it. Not to mention I got divorced in Oct 2020 and have been stuck in an $$$ townhouse rental because the housing market is so awful. I feel like I am waiting to start my life with just the house situation and the costs of literally everything else are like a gut punch.
I feel this too. I haven’t worked in the summer in 15 years. I’m starting to look for something part time.
"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
I’m here. It’s insane how much prices are going up, especially since it seems like there is no end in sight. Housing is the one that really makes no sense to me. There seems to be no ceiling! Even with interest rates doubling, it doesn’t seem to matter. A new house in my town is on the market for $1.8M!!!! I never would have thought that would be possible. We’re itching for more space but we can never move, it’s too expensive. Luckily our house is fine for us, but it’s depressing to feel like there is no option to ever move.
We’re lucky we don’t drive much anymore, but the price increases are really nuts. And I don’t see how this ends. Covid disrupted things on a scale never seen in my lifetime, so I have no idea how it goes back to “normal”. The low level anxiety is really messing with me. I feel like we’re on the brink of disaster every day and it’s so stressful. Add in that we will likely lose at midterms and I just want to run away. It’s only going to get worse.
Post by donutsmakemegonuts on May 21, 2022 13:59:49 GMT -5
Super thankful the job I got a year ago is only 7 minutes from my house. DH also works in the town we live in and has a "company" vehicle (law enforcement) so we have lucked out with that. If I was at my old job still I would be commuting over 30 minutes each way 3 times a week.
We are in a good place financially and it's just the two of us, but yes, it is shocking to slowly be seeing the prices of groceries and gas going up.
Everything in Canada has always been more expensive than in the US, so I'm somewhat used to it, but our prices are going up even more these days and it's awful. I'm a public servant and my salary is grid-based. It's not keeping up with inflation at all. Also there's the cost of living on an island, where things are more expensive because everything to be brought over by boat. We could move elsewhere in Canada but I'd rather not because my parents are getting older and I want to be near them if possible.