Housing Bust?

[Karried]

Anyone worried about the housing situation?

I've been following CA real estate for years ( ever since I sold my house there and watched it more than double in value after I moved! ouch!)

Home prices are still really high there but the market has experienced some challenges.

And the market has drastically changed from a while ago when homes were selling like hot cakes.. now you have listings galore, forclosures, long days on market and a pall on buyers and sellers alike.

We're a bit insulated here but is anyone worried about real estate here in OK? ie House values dropping substantially?


Housing Crash Continues, Bubble Pops

Thoughts? Any personal experiences?

[Midtowner]

I think it's inevitable that there'll be a slump in OKC. With all of the foreclosures out there, there's a massive supply of very willing sellers who are in it for minimal profit. I'm glad I didn't get into an 80/20 during the days of subprime intending to refinance the 20 when my appraised value went up!

-- that was an option I was considering at one point. I'm glad I left it on the table!

[bandnerd]

Me too!

[Oh GAWD the Smell!]

While I have enough equity for this to not be a huge factor...What's going to suck is when I sell my house in the next year or two is not getting that sweet, sweet interest rate of around 5% on my next house which is going to cost a lot more than this one.

[tnajk]

I think OKC will be just fine.

[metro]

I'm not too worried about OKC either. Not near the amount of speculation housing built as there was in California and parts of the East Coast (i.e. Florida). If the national economy suffers to hard and crashes and the dollar continues to fall, we may see a slowdown in our economy but I don't think OKC housing prices will drop dramatically like they will elsewhere.

[Karried]

I think we'll be alright here. We have had a bit of a slow down in terms of days on market and a bit of a price drop (from personal observations only). I haven't tracked the MLS statistics..

I saw this on Ebay the other day.

Frisco Texas, I hope we don't see a lot more of this!

Stupid ARMS and zero interest, 80/20 buy more than you could ever hope to afford and hope to God that you don't lose your job and have to sell your home for less than you owe loans.


Foreclosed Family Must Sell $3,500 Armoire for Beans! - (eBay item 160162612474 end time Oct-04-07 20:51:41 PDT)

[Oh GAWD the Smell!]

Holds a 50" TV?

That's no armoire, that's a space station!

[PennyQuilts]

We plan to move back to OKC within 5 years. Anyone have any thoughts about buying now and holding? Wait? Don't want to have a house sitting idle for 5 years and not sure about a renter, long distance.

[dismayed]

I've been checking websites watching the sale prices of homes and it really seems like parts of the metro area are flat-lining right now, or just paralleling inflation. I've noticed that usually in years where the inflation rate is 2% the housing market seems to go up annually by about 3.5%, with the exception of the last few years (during the boom) where we saw sometimes 9% appreciation a year (which is still quite reasonable considering parts of the country were seeing ~30%). So I really don't think you are talking about big savings or a big loss with buying now vs. waiting. Renting long distance would be a big hassle. You could get the assistance of a property management company here in OKC I suppose but that'd probably be more expensive than its worth.

Honestly I'd probably just wait.

[traxx]

I don't see OK being that affected by it because our housing prices were closer to reality to start with. The housing prices on the coasts (esp. the left coast) were just waaaaaay out of whack. There's no way that could hold up. Just because someone would pay $750K for 2 bed 1 bath doesn't mean that the house was worth that.

I kinda relate it to the dot com boom and bust. There were alot of dot com stocks that were through the roof but they were so inflated and weren't worth the asking price that when the bust finally did come alot of people lost their butts.

Housing prices have just gotten way out of hand and hopefully the bust restores some order to housing prices, otherwise we're still sitting on a house of cards (no pun intended) as a country and an economy.

[PennyQuilts]

Thanks, dismayed.

Yeah, here in the DC area, I think we might be in trouble, notwithstanding that the federal government and military provides a lot of stable employment. They have been building like it is going out of style - tons and tons of McMansions. Five years ago you went through countryside to get to our place 45 minutes south of DC. Now, it is beginning to look like Northwest Highway and continues on south. They kill trees like it is bermuda grass. Still shocks me. Unfortunately, even in this insulated environment, the housing problem has hit. People can't keep up with the payments and forclosures are hitting this area hard. Great for prospective home owners but for folks like us, with a 15 year old house, we are getting slaughtered should we want to sell. For not much more money, buyers can get a house that is twice as big and only a couple of years old. The lots suck, though. It has gotten so bad that our county has issued a year long moratorium on issuing residential building permits. Can you imagine that happening in Oklahoma County? Housing sale prices have dropped 35% in my county in the past year.

[OKBound]

We just moved from Frisco this summer. We were very fortunate to break even on our house sale. There were sooo many houses for sale and the foreclosures just kept piling up. It was insane! There were new homes going up left and right, high dollar homes that are now being sold for a song so the builders can unload their inventory.

[NE Oasis]

While I have enough equity for this to not be a huge factor...What's going to suck is when I sell my house in the next year or two is not getting that sweet, sweet interest rate of around 5% on my next house which is going to cost a lot more than this one.

Okay. One of my pet peeves -
If you buy a house as an investment vehicle you must take the risks that come with any investment. If you buy a house to be a home, you will always be happy with it!

[Oh GAWD the Smell!]

Okay. One of my pet peeves -
If you buy a house as an investment vehicle you must take the risks that come with any investment. If you buy a house to be a home, you will always be happy with it!

This was my first house. I didn't buy it for the investment, I bought it because I needed a place to live.

My NEXT house will hopefully be my "home" for a very long time. This house was my "figure out what you really want vice what you thought you wanted in a domicile" house.

Not that there's anything wrong with my current house. I like it fine.