My husband and I are renters. We really wanted to buy a house this year. It's a goal we've been working towards for a few years. We've spent time building credit and working on our savings so we could have enough for a nice down payment and still have a decent emergency fund and also have good enough credit for a good mortgage. If it were the same market that it was even just two years ago we'd be in a great spot to buy a house but now we aren't. We can't afford a house that's in decent shape now.
Where I live just about four years ago you could get a good 1400sqft+ house for $150k+ and a really nice 2000sqft+ house in the $200k+ range. We would be willing to do a cosmetic reno ourselves but at $280k to well over $300k for a house with good bones but nothing else we just can't afford it. Everything has essentially doubled in price if not more. To get a 1200sqft house with maybe a quarter acre, brown shit all in the sink, spoiled stuff in the fridge, dead animals, holes in the walls, obvious water damage, mold, trash and questionable fluids everywhere it's gonna be about $150k. Houses like that used to easily be well under $100k. An 800sqft fixer upper on maybe a quarter acre that's not trashed but still needs a lot of work is gonna be about $250k at minimum and that's only if there isn't a bidding war. I know a few people trying to buy and when they found a house they liked they got outbid by at least $50k+. This happened to them with multiple houses. I have a friend who inherited property and someone contacted them and wanted to pay $20k over what they were asking before they even put it on the market. Prices are crazy but somehow people are buying like crazy.
My husband and I have been looking online to see if there is anything out there worth looking at and over 90% of the listings are pending/contingent. Houses that we've seen newly posted are contingent with just a few days if not 24 hours or less sometimes.There's hardly anything to choose from on the market. We don't live in an undesired area but it's not the most desired area either. From what we know pay hasn't gone up enough to compensate for the increasing market so we are very confused. We keep wondering how the heck so many people are buying houses right now?
March 12, 2022 at 12:58AM
