Realty Denial?

Maybe the folks that responded are just tired of the media doom and gloom approach!

i think the real moral of this article is most people are dumb

Most folks live reality, what does that mean. Since most folks don???t buy or sell there home they don't know what the market value for there home is. During the boom prices were unrealistically high, so those prices (even if a few folks actually sold houses) aren???t real and don't mean anything. A real example, In 2004 I had a home appraised at $220,000, in 2005 a realtor told me I could sell it for $330,000 (like a neighbor did) I did sell it in 2008 for $275,000. Does that mean I lost $55,000 on the value of my home? Absolutely not I actually gained $55,000 over the 2004 appraised value, and $177,000 over the originally purchase price of $98,000 in 1990. That is I didn???t loose anything other than the unrealistic expectation of getting $330,000 for the home.

It is a market correction not a sudden drop in home values. If you have ever watched any of the shows on HGTV for example of people selling their houses you can see the greed that is the partial cause of this. You will see someone who pait 120,000 for a houst in the midwest 3 years ago, put in 5,000 worth of shoddy upgrades, and now want to sell it for 220,000 so they can buy the nicer, newer and bigger house a few miles away. The problem is as long as someone pays 220,000 for that house, now all similar houses in that area are now in that range even though the value isnt based on anything but the fact that someone was willing to overpay. It was bound to happen, with prices going up as fast as they have and all of the new construction etc eventually you will have more houses than people that can reasonably afford them, this creates a surplus and thus values go down. The worst hit cities are those where the prices have gotten to the point where it is virtually impossible for the median income family to afford a house. Dont look for values to go up any time in the near future. We got too greedy for our own good.

Most folks live reality, what does that mean. Since most folks don???t buy or sell there home they don't know what the market value for there home is. During the boom prices were unrealistically high, so those prices (even if a few folks actually sold houses) aren???t real and don't mean anything. A real example, In 2004 I had a home appraised at $220,000, in 2005 a realtor told me I could sell it for $330,000 (like a neighbor did) I did sell it in 2008 for $275,000. Does that mean I lost $55,000 on the value of my home? Absolutely not I actually gained $55,000 over the 2004 appraised value, and $177,000 over the originally purchase price of $98,000 in 1990. That is I didn???t loose anything other than the unrealistic expectation of getting $330,000 for the home.

I am like jr10 below...2 incomes in the mid 150's and I can't afford a house. I sold my house in a smaller community and so did my wife, both after our divorces. We have both rented since 1999..when we were both single. Now that we are married and we have 2 incomes, the houses where I live in California are STILL being offered at $800k, and they were only at $300K in 1999 when I had one income and did not want to risk it alone. The property taxes alone at 1.3% of the purchase price is a real issue too...the we would have homeowners's insurance, plus maintenence, plus groceries, plus gas, plus utilities, plus car payments, plus cell bill, plus phone bill, plus cable bill, plus car insurance, plus clothing, plus school costs, plus medical insurance premiums and deductables, plus dental insurance and deductables, plus trying to save anything we can, plus credit cards, plus car repairs, plus home yard expenses....how has anyone thought they could do this on any kind of regular salary?

My family bought a house before all of this "crisis" started. We saved money, lived right, didn't buy a house beyond our means, and have no intention of selling in the next 10-20 years...if ever. If I went looking for a house in the past few years, there is no way I would have purchased. People want too much more than what they paid for a profit. Before, If you bought a house 2 years ago and expect a $20,000 profit, you better have put down a BIG downpayment. That is and always has been unreasonable. A house is bought to live in. To invest in by living there for YEARS. The price of my home hasn't fallen....know why? Because I didn't pay a jacked up amount for it to begin with like the previous poster mentioned is a problem. Why can't they buy a house when they are doing everything right? Because stupid people getting stupid loans jacked up the market for the responsible home buyer. Good luck to you jr10 and I hope someday all this stupidity ends and you CAN buy a resonable house that you are working so hard for. I just got lucky on the timing. Barely.

Of course they are in denial. We're a young family, live within our means, no debt, save money, and we can't afford a house. I'm priced out. How is it that it was ok for housing to double in price over the past 8 years? That's not reasonable. Wages don't increase that much. The same house rents for a fraction of the cost of buying, and yet still the houses sit on the market. But I can wait ... meanwhile paying cheap rent, and no property taxes,and having no maintenance fees.