Housing prices in your 'hood - up or down?

[Spartana]

Here in SoCal housing prices seem to be on the move up and inventory of homes is way down - at least in the more coastal parts of SoCal. Even have some crazy bidding wars going on driving prices up quite high. Wonder if it's going to be similair to the early 2000's before the housing market crashed. What's it like in your area and state. Are prices still falling and foreclosures still happening or is it on the rise? Will you be making any changes in your housing situation (buying or selling) because of those changes? I'm not looking to buy anything anytime soon (although I know I should while prices are so low - just not ready to settle down permanently yet) but wonder if things are going up in other areas.

[try2bfrugal]

Home prices in our city in Northern California are going back to crazy high. Houses in our neighborhood sell pretty quick. We were thinking of selling and downsizing but right now with interest rates so low the house actually seems like a good investment to keep. I think we will stay put for at least a year or two until things stabilize. We also have a property tax base set from several decades ago so I am loathe to give that up or use our one time downsizing exception until we are older. I really want a smaller and newer house but land is so expensive here we just wouldn't save much by downsizing unless we downsize and move somewhere cheaper.

[iris lily]

Low, low, low. But this shouldn't come as a surprise because our 'nabe was, in the real estate run up, in the top 5% of areas in the St. Louis Metro areas. Some of our friends are pretty shocked at their property's new appraised worth these days, but them's the break. Some win, some lose in the real estate game.

Over all in our metro area, prices are creeping up.

[ApatheticNoMore]

The SoCal housing market is so manipulated, inventory withheld from the market (shadow inventory), only allowed to leak out in a controlled fashion, etc., it's such a controlled manipulated market. But so it is, and so it may be for the foreseeable future, I'm not saying it's going to magically change anytime soon, though several decades ahead yea probably. I've decided there is no way that a house here to me is worth putting most of my wealth and income into. If houses were reasonable like in other parts of the country and it was just part of my basketful of eggs that I had or whatever then maybe. But a lifetimes worth of wealth and labor for a piece of land to call my own in a place I don't even see a bright future for? Think I'll be renting. :)

[Alan]

I stopped paying attention to the local real estate market several years ago, although according to Zillow, my house's current value is about the same as when I built it in 1995. If that is true, prices have risen slightly recently.

[Gregg]

We never experienced a big boom so never had a big bust, either. Prices went up at a conservative, steady rate for many years here in Nebraska. A couple percent a year, not 20% or 40% like some other places. A few years back that trend reversed for a while. Overall the drop is said to have been less than 10%. Now the prices are creeping back up, mainly because several second tier builders closed up shop so now there is a shortage of available new housing.

[pinkytoe]

Very healthy. Lots of newcomers and low inventory. We could list and sell in a few days as that is how every house around us has gone with most selling over asking price. I wish we were ready to move...but for now will probably refinance and stay a while longer. Better than money in the bank at this point.

[peggy]

Creeping up. We didn't experience a bust either, but building did stop for awhile. Now it's back and things are looking up!

[Lainey]

Creeping up here too, and the investors are definitely back in metro Phoenix. Buyers looking for houses in the $150,000 - $175,000 range are getting outbid by investors.

[awakenedsoul]

I bought my cottage in So CA for $89,500. in 1998. I bought it from the owner without an agent, and paid cash, (so that's why the price was lower.) He had been my landlord. During the bubble, it was supposedly worth over $300,000. Now Zillow says it's worth $163,000. Thanks to Proposition 13, my property taxes are low. We've had foreclosures being picked up here. Looks like a couple of investors have bought fixer uppers for good prices and are planning to rent them. Prices are still very good in this area, though.

I looked at a couple of cottages in Carmel when I was there. The real estate agent told me that she's been selling a lot to investors. Most of those homes belong to the top 1% and are vacation homes. I think because of the estate tax situation, people are buying there to protect their money. (They don't want to give 50% to the government when they die.)

[JaneV2.0]

Up slightly. A neighbor's house just sold quickly for $430,000--a sign the housing market is on the mend.

[Float On]

I've noticed that new builds are sold within 6 weeks and re-sells are 6weeks -several years depending on the seller's expectations. Re-sell prices are creeping up again. New builds are in the $150,000-$175,000 range instead of the $375,00 + range it was 5 years ago. City Limit new build permits compared to County new build permits are about 1 city to 25 county.

[ToomuchStuff]

Both up and down. Area, age of house, condition, etc. all play into it. I talked to someone I know a few streets over, and his house was given an appraisal recently for around $100k, while some sites like Zillow, was putting it between $25 to $35k. (I live in a poorer section of town) Generally it is down all over. Don't really care as mine is paid off, and I know the only games are done by the tax people (market seems to be down but the taxes are up).

[freein05]

We live in a resort 2nd home area that was hit hard. Homes have been on the market for as long as a year or now starting to move. The sales prices area way down from the highs. But it looks like prices have hit their bottom. Remember the homes in my area are for the most part luxury purchases. They are 2nd and vacation homes.

[SteveinMN]

Homes here in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area that are listed for under $150,000 are attracting multiple bids. Good houses under $200,000 in desirable areas are moving pretty well. There's still a lot of inventory at the high end, and that likely will continue for a long time, as those houses have always been harder to sell. The houses in this neighborhood tend very much to the low end of prices in Saint Paul. My/our house was at the median price for the Twin Cities market when I bought it in 2005. The median price is about $35,000 below that now, but I suspect that the large number of foreclosed lower-priced houses which have sold and the lack of sales in upper-bracket properties has skewed the median. I think if we had to put this house on the market rightnowthissecond we'd break even; maybe even do a bit better because I put a lot down. But the market is going to be slow for a long long time.

[Spartana]

We live in a resort 2nd home area that was hit hard. Homes have been on the market for as long as a year or now starting to move. The sales prices area way down from the highs. But it looks like prices have hit their bottom. Remember the homes in my area are for the most part luxury purchases. They are 2nd and vacation homes.

That how it is in the SoCal mountains too - pretty much all 2nd homes or vacation homes hit hard by the housing slump., well hit hard by the lack of visitors to the lake in summer and ski resorts in winter because they had lost their jobs and couldn't afford to visit or had to sell their vacation homes. One reason I wouldn't buy up here again even if you can get good prices now - but reselling it in the future is iffy as there is always a huge inventory. With few "real" jobs, the economy is extremely dependant on summer lake tourists and skiers.

[redfox]

Up just a bit... The inventory of foreclosed homes still high in Seattle, I do believe.

[puglogic]

Both prices and sales are up where I live, but not in a worrisome way. The same house that was on the market for 6 months a couple of years ago is selling in 2-3 weeks now, and for slightly more. I take it as a good sign our community is healthy and rolling with the punches.

[ctg492]

I have property in the "vacation" "hunting" area up north. We always knew in realestate when the southern part of the state got a small burp, the north go the flu. Nothing has improved there. I am watching the Realtor.com often. Here Down state the inventory is low. The homes that have gone on the market in our part of the township, sold fast. However the prices have not gone up, maybe not drop in a year, but far below three years ago. I think it is the new norm for home prices, where they are at now in our area. I bid on two homes this summer, both went for much higher then the start list price, but both were auctions.

[citrine]

Our home has gone up $30K since we bought it last year.....the ones around us are in the 215K-350K for older homes in Central Jersey.

[jennipurrr]

Stagnant here for the past few years. Zillow says my house is worth $2,000 more than I paid in 2005, but we enclosed the garage last year when we had to make some repairs to the house so it might be worth a bit more than that. We never had a big drop off but lots of inventory and some foreclosures. We bought a rental property in 2008 at the courthouse as a foreclosure we thought was such a good deal but it turns out that after the money we put into it we could sell it for maybe $10,000 than we paid :/ Oh well, could be worse!

[San Onofre Guy]

Be skeptical of Zillow. Even though there is essentially no homes on the market in my immediate neighborhood, but not far away homes are selling at higher amounts, Zillow says the value of my home is dropping. Why? a house three lots away sold for $150,000 on the cul de sac where all homes are valued $500,000-$650,000. I am almost entirely certain that this transaction was a inter family sale as there was never a for sale sign up and the house does not warrant a low price like that. The Zillow algorithm I don't think takes those things into perspective.

[freein05]

A side note. We live in timber country. Until this year there were very few log trucks on the highway. This year it has been a string of log trucks on highway all day long. I think this is another sign that the economy is coming back. These are big corporations running the timber industry these days and they would not be spending money cutting trees if they could not make money.