How are people affording these crazy home prices?

[dtrkyman]

I guess we shall see in the next few years once the foreclosures start to pop up!

 

[TxxAgg]

Tract home, not track home.

Sorry, my OCD kicked in.

 

[HuntHarder]

Tract home, not track home.

Sorry, my OCD kicked in.

Rest easy, I edited my post.

 

[Alpine4x4]

Yea its crazy what prices are up to. Bought my place in 2015 and easily doubled in value, really should have pulled together the extra $100k to get a similar place on an acreage back then.

Still starting to shop though and will pull the trigger fall 2025 or spring 2026 on what will at least be intended to be a forever home. Luckily where I live you can still get a nice house on 20 acres for under $1mm.

That's about what we're all in for a new build on 20ac out here. I never in a million years thought I'd be paying that much for a home that's not 5000 sq/ft.

Pretty basic. I see developments marketing to first time buyers. Big mistake.

Go find the shittiest house in the nicest neighborhood you can afford to own......I didn't say buy, I said own. If you can afford to own it, you csn afford to buy it.

Now, fix that pos up as you live in it and watch your equity skyrocket.

I paid cash for my 3rd home after doing this 2x over 10 years. By junk, make it awesome and repeat.

Doesn't happen here in the PNW unless you get really lucky on auction or foreclosure. The shitty houses in the shitty neighborhoods are starting at $350k and up. Anything in a nice neighborhood no matter how run down is starting at $500k because they will sell at that price. Its really knocked a lot of potential first time buyers out of the market.

 

[riversidejeep]

That's drugs, not home prices.

I think the "undocumented" are probably included also.

 

[HuntHarder]

I have been waiting for this "bubble" to burst for 6 years. So far it has cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars in unrealized profits. Something has got to give, just have no clue when that something will be.

 

[svivian]

I have been waiting for this "bubble" to burst for 6 years. So far it has cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars in unrealized profits. Something has got to give, just have no clue when that something will be.

Yep been hearing about the housing market crash that was supposed to happen in 2019. Thank goodness i didnt wait to buy a house.

 

[riversidejeep]

One hidden gem in living in a fixer is the relationship development. If you have a spouse that can handle being dirty, not having the fanciest and willing to work with you.....you will have far fewer arguments in your future.

If you have a princess......god help you.

^^^^^ Truth!, My wife and our 2 kids and I moved into the house I was remodeling while it was bare studs.Plywood floors,left over vinyl from the bath for countertops in the kitchen ( stapled down mind you), I had the roof peeled off and a thunder storm rolled through and the plaster fell down on my little one in the crib ! We both did what it took. now in our 60's and life is great.

 

[loganwayne]

You will love it. I was debt free at 42. I paid cash for my last truck a couple years ago. We now save money at a rate that lets us pay cash for everything while living a good life. We are far from fancy, but we have a great life and my wife can stay at home with our kids.

I worked my ass off through my 20s and 30s to make it happen and it's not a short game, but now at 50 I live a life young people would be happy to have.

Stay the course!

We aren't the people that want a 4000sf house with all the bells and whistles. My wife has just requested a second bathroom either as an addition here or in a new house lol

 

[Fatcamp]

The days of saving a couple thousand dollars and waiting for something to pop up are over. That's what happened to me. I didn't even want to buy my house but my landlord wanted out of it in 2008 and gave me first option. I just didn't want to move. Best decision ever. 160k investment worth 360k now. Crazy, and I have a hard time believing it.

The young folks I know buying houses have been very focused on educations that pay well and making financial success a priority. That was not me.

 

[BRTreedogs]

What fees? The only fee I paid was for a required foundation inspection, I think it was $400.

They hide it in the loan homie,
The funding fee for a VA loan is almost double that of conventional.

The only reason to do it is if you cannot afford enough down to get away from PMI and you plan to keep the house long term.

And the funding fee increases each time you use you VA home loan benefit.

 

[WeiserBucks]

They hide it in the loan homie,
The funding fee for a VA loan is almost double that of conventional.

The only reason to do it is if you cannot afford enough down to get away from PMI and you plan to keep the house long term.

And the funding fee increases each time you use you VA home loan benefit.

No down payment, no PMI, no funding fee. Disabled MOFO

 

[Pony Soldier]

I saw a lot of this start where people were selling junk homes in California for $300-400 K and coming to Montana and buying a $80,000 home for $120,000. The only flaw was there were no jobs and substantially less wage rate where there were. Many sold off their assets to survive for 6-10 years trying to find an income then moved to where there was job and sold the house at a loss.

I think the remote jobs have perpetrated this plus retirements. Now we see &300-400k prices on houses where local incomes are $40k and few locals can afford a house. This can't continue without a collapse to get things back in order.

I'm watching taxes rise in proportion to the house prices. This will drive the residents out as the taxes exceed the retirement incomes of the locals. My house price has already gone up 5 times the purchase price and the taxes have doubled. The future doesn't look good.

 

[pacoalcracker]

Well, when you have 12-15 million people dropping into the country out of nowhere in a short period of time.....these people have to live somewhere. That, and the fact we were 3 million homes short to begin with just made things worse and higher for longer interest rates are just going to stretch this out even longer. I don't expect this to be resolved for another 8-10 years. Young people are just going to have to tough it out as best they can and stop complaining about it. It's called life. Deal with it.

Perhaps when Trump takes over Canada there will be lots more land to develop and a place to ship all of these "extra" people to.

People are moving from NYC and New Jersey to my area by the droves the past 4 years to escape high taxes and terrible living conditions. They sell their homes for a few million and buy a larger home here on 10x more land for 1/3 the price. That is happening everywhere as workers are a lot more mobile and 1/2 of the workforce are still working remotely to some degree.

It will take a severe recession AND market crash for a major reset to take place. I don't see that happening with the FED playing their games and the Trump admin coming in. If anything, it's going to get worse before it gets better.

 

[pacoalcracker]

Pony, high home prices and higher taxes is what drove residents in Hawaii out of their homes and even out of their state.

 

[ddd-shooter]

Pretty basic. I see developments marketing to first time buyers. Big mistake.

Go find the shittiest house in the nicest neighborhood you can afford to own......I didn't say buy, I said own. If you can afford to own it, you csn afford to buy it.

Now, fix that pos up as you live in it and watch your equity skyrocket.

I paid cash for my 3rd home after doing this 2x over 10 years. By junk, make it awesome and repeat.

I see this comment all the time from people who did it after 2008.
Where I live, a double wide trailer costs 300k on land.
Did your first house cost 250k? With 6.5% interest?
I seriously don’t think a livable house in my area is under 250. Realistically 300.
Not a big deal, unless you’re starting out and rent is 2k.

 

[ReaptheHeat]

Insurance just dropped me and every other CO resident. Time to shop around and it's not looking good. Taxes up too. CO thinks increasing taxes (on lower and middle class mostly) will solve issues that are created by lack of income in the first place. Sigh...

 

[TaperPin]

Well, we’re about to see what happens when a good percentage of the residential housing labor market goes away. I was chatting with a guy running a stucco crew and he estimates 1/4 of their guys will simply stay south and work in one of the luxury housing developments in Mexico. I imagine the numbers will be similar with drywall, framing, roofing and concrete. Low cost housing isn’t as profitable as mcmansions, so the chance of lower priced homes becoming cheaper in the foreseeable future are quite low. If there is an overall increase in labor cost of 15%, tariffs increasing building material costs, and inflationary pressures, I don’t claim to have a crystal ball, but see things getting worse, unless there’s a crash and a lot of value is lost.

 

[Wrench]

I see this comment all the time from people who did it after 2008.
Where I live, a double wide trailer costs 300k on land.
Did your first house cost 250k? With 6.5% interest?
I seriously don’t think a livable house in my area is under 250. Realistically 300.
Not a big deal, unless you’re starting out and rent is 2k.

My first house was 130k. I made about 45k a year. I worked it over and sold it for 240k. I bought a complete pos on 5 acres for 144k and developed a nice place which sold it for 350k while making about 50k.

Today any skilled labor can make 70k easy enough and top hands will be able to double that or more.

Not having car payments, the new iphone 27 and $43k worth of sitka and guns makes saving pretty easy. I hear the rent stories and completely understand as we were making 2k a month on our rental but today in spokane you absolutely can rent a place for $1k a month. Is it a great place in a nice neighborhood?....no, but do you want to fast track to a home or do you want to entertain in your rental.

Wealth is not about instant returns. It takes risk and time.

How many people complaining about the cost of homes have a top tier cell phone, a car newer than 10 years and credit card payments?

This is the time to talk to your grandparents who paid 10+% interest.

The first step to keeping money in your pocket would be to stop reading these forums and be at work.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

Yeah it’s wild, we bought a 1300 square foot place in rural Alaska back in 2020, we got a 2.1% interesting rate in a 15 year mortgage. The 2100/month payment is like 1/5th of our monthly take home. We paid 330k for the house. This is in an area where there never has been and never will be (can’t) any major real estate consturction, I think there’s been 1, maybe 2 homes built in the past 8 years.

I bumped into the appraiser (he was in town for another house) and he told me that if I listed the house, I could likely list it at 425 and sell it within the week.