At least it sucks when you're shopping in a real estate market that's suffering the aftershocks of hyper inflation.

Four years ago you could have got yourself into a nearly-new suburban track-home for under 200k. Then the market went on a bat-shit crazy binge for a couple years.

At the height of the boom, you'd be in a bidding war for that same house for all of 15 minutes before it sold to some jackass investor out of LA for 310k. They all expected to sit on the property for a month or two, maybe a year, and flip it for another 50k or more. The bubble burst and now there's a couple dozen foreclosures a week because people bought up property they couldn't afford long-term.

All these newly bank-owned properties are flooding the market, but the banks being what they are, refuse to loose money on these deals. Houses that should rightfully be below 200k are still being held up by stubborn banks for what's still owed on them. (In one case in particular, I saw a bank list a pretty rundown house on the MLS at price of 210k, but finally dropped it to 180k.They rejected three offers for that lower price, then promptly jacked the price back up $12,000.) In the mean time, interest rates took off in May and June and haven't really relaxed.

When I decided it was time to get myself into a house back in March, things didn't look so bad. Interest rates were ok, but the prices hadn't yet dropped into my wheel-house. It may just be my perception, but prices seem to have flattened right about the time the interest rates bumped.

In the mean time, I allowed the lease on my apartment to expire and convert to month-to-month. I didn't plan on this taking so damned long. So I'm paying pretty close to what a cheap mortgage would be as it is.

Speculating investors and realtors have fucking destroyed the AZ real estate market, screwing those of us who actually want to live and work here.

Posted in Random Debris by: Will at 10:25 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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