Open House Picks: Six Months Later

“As for calling you an asshole, you don’t start something up confrontationally like that and expect to be dealt with politely..”

Wow! DIBS called the jackal an asshole? Team Bullshit getting testy? I gotta go find THAT dialogue.

***Bid half off peak comps***

prices are going down – just a matter of how far and how fast / slow. this coming from a home owner.

Most people no longer view real estate as a sure-win INVESTMENT anymore. Investment – yes. Guaranteed juicy returns on investments – no; that bus left in 07. It’s a place to live. Owning / renting – depends on each person’s needs and financial war chest. Not to represent all but I’ll throw myself out as a sample in the data set. I did the cashflow calc’s of renting vs buying, etc before locking on budget and buying a place back in ’02. as I saw prices keep going up and seeing others making big profits buying & selling, I nearly got tempted into buying something super expensive on a gimmick option mortgage and premise was real estate was a can’t miss profitable investment. have to believe a lot fewer people think like that anymore. The fact that “entry” or “starter” homes are laughable terms cause prices are too high for many to afford to enter the mkt.

Personally, I look at rents (for NYC mkt) – ie if it start to go up then yeah, purchase prices will stabilize or go up. right now landlords have little leverage to jack up rents despite rising costs and this situation is very compelling for people to rent vs. buying.

Yes, Benson, I’m back (though with somewhat less frequency as I do have a busy job!). Interestingly, folks have been a lot nicer to me since my hiatus. As far as my assumptions, my daily actions are to continue to follow the market closely and look for a property we love that we can afford. If we find the right thing, we’ll buy but we’re in no rush. The major difference between now and 6 months ago is that we’ve lowered our budget – our cash has grown modestly (in savings) but our allocation has changed dramatically since this money now has to go in part towards college & retirement (since our non-cash investments for those items have been decimated). We have nothing to lose by waiting, and much to gain. And even though handles are used at these get-togethers, I already find Bklyn (and NYC for that matter) a small world – I do relish my privacy here, and would be cautious about “blowing my cover”.

benson…I don’t know how the whole deflation/inflation scenario is going to play out. For now, rates are headed lower and affordability is certainly rising. I think both Adam and my lawyer will attest to being swamped with refi business. The way this has worked in past interest rate cycles is that the buyers hold off as rates fall and don’t really rush in until rates actually start rising again fearful that they are now going to rise too much. I’m not sure in this cycle that housing prices will follow inflation back up. we have to see first when the inflationary cycle starts and what are its characteristics. It certainly won’t be wage driven, which is amongst the worse kind.

Bklnite, we don’t run out money based on statistical black boxes here. The faults in a statistical model are certainly well known now, sadly for many investors.

DIBS – thanks for the compliment but we’re all human, and as we’ve seen, real estate touches lots of raw nerves. And why not? For most people, it’s their single biggest financial decision, the locus of their home (and thus, for some, their identity)/community/family, a huge marker of class in many cases, etc. etc. I like to think I’m a level-headed person, but I could see how discussions in person could get heated. Lord knows they already are in this virtual space.