Housing update thread !

[cuadrado]

We recently made an offer $75k above ask with $65k in earnest money and the seller went with another offer. This housing market sucks.

[themoneytree]

Zillow is hilariously off in my market. Off by hundreds of thousands of dollars. I did notice that a (landmark) home on our block just had the zesstimate increase from 800k to 1.4m so that’s an increase…. but they paid $1.4 8 years ago. It’s worth well over 2m now. So the zestimate is between 600k and 1 million off.

We sold my H’s rental house at the peak in May. Listed it for $239k and got $270k cash no contingencies. He had it on the market two years ago and the highest over was $210k.

We listed my old house in June when things had started to slow. It’s a relatively high price point (high 900s) and a very (!) unique conversion. It’s never going to be for everyone. We got loads of amazing feedback but no feasible offers in the one week it was on the market.
We also had it listed for rent and got over asking (5500/ month), one year paid in advance, two year lease. They move in next Friday and I’m already having second thoughts. I really hope this goes ok. It’s a ridiculously high rent for here, but I kind of wish we had waited for the right buyers.

The market here has definitely softened. We went from having 2 listings in town to 14 and things are not flying off how they did 4 or 5 weeks ago. Especially higher price points. Showings went from 40-50 showings to 5-10. It literally happened over night a few weeks ago. So very strange. No idea what will happen now. I’m watching it carefully.

[Beeps (WOT?*)]

Relative did a Zillow estimate for pre-sale when was moving from GA. One of those "we'll buy your house and sell one in your new location" type things. A realtor suggested a reasonable sale price, and she ended up listing a bit below. Zillow dropped her estimate within hours by something like $25K. The reason she had listed it low in the first place was to get it to move since they were in a time crunch. (Short notice relocation for new military position.)

I just checked Trulia, Zillow and Redfin for my house. Both Trulia and Zillow have it at $907K, which is about $50K over last month's overly high estimate. Redfin has us in the $820 range, which I think is more reasonable for my street. A smaller house on a smaller lot sold for $750 with a listing of $725. But a friend's house a few blocks away sold within a week for almost $100K over asking. Mine would be in the mid-range of our area of suburban tract homes on small lots. We don't have an HOA, which apparently a lot of people can appreciate. We're one of a very few streets that aren't in an HOA. But almost a million for our house? I don't think that's in the realm of possiblity.

It's totally ridiculous. We shouldn't be sitting anywhere above $600-650K in the absolutely most normal market imaginable. (Which is about where we were a year ago according to all estimates.)

But then, holy shit! I just checked the house the ex and I bought in the early '90s for $85K and sold in '97 for a whopping $87K. It climbed to $220K in '05 when we moved out here then down to $160 after the market crashed. The 800 s.f. 3/1 house built in 1959, not even on sewer (I remember having to have the septic pumped when the ex didn't do it and ew...) and no garage, etc. and certainly not well maintained, sold in December for $320K. (!!!!!) The estimate for the little dump is now sitting at somewhere around $387K.