Yea you’re supposed to take 25-30% off of whatever Zillow says it is. They are notorious for getting tax information wrong.
I would say you might be stuck in the Vancouver headspace. Here in London, ON, you can get a nice place for $500k. I paid way less than $650k for my place, for instance.
I don’t recommend paying above asking price or getting into a bidding war. A lot of times, people get into bidding wars on houses and offer an amount well above asking, but the house doesn’t appraise for that amount. Banks won’t give a mortgage above the appraised value. So you have to be ready to bring extra cash to closing or the sale might fall through. Sometimes, things might get missed by an inspector before a sale. In our house, the previous owner ghetto rigged some small things to keep them working and we ended up with plumping issues in the kitchen sink and garbage disposal. I would recommend having a professional look at certain plumbing and electrical stuff independently of the home inspection. Take a look at the plumbing, hvac, and roof condition. If it’s old galvanized pipes, they will need to be replaced. HVAC systems will get 10-15 years of life at most. A good roof will last 20-30 years. All of those can get massively expensive. We’ve had all 3 done in our home. We did windows too.
I think they also do that because they buy a lot of the houses so they might overvalue them to make themselves more money.
Where I’m at, asking price hasn’t gotten you a house in the last 5 years. It just keeps getting worse. I was pining after a cute mid century house listed at 435k but it went for 520k, was under contract in about 36 hours and closed in 13 days from when it was listed, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they waived inspection and/or had a cash buyer.
It depends. In our area, we have a ton of people selling their property in Toronto for insanely high prices, and them taking that cash and moving to a surrounding city, like here in London. As a result, they are able to buy a house for cash, for stupidly higher-than-listing values, put a Porsche in the garage, and still have cash in the bank. Their attitude is "this is the house we want, so we're willing to spend some of that free money we got to do so." I can understand being in that kind of a position where you're not needing a mortgage, etc. But otherwise, yeah, just like an auction, don't get in a bidding war, and educate yourself on the comparables over time, assuming that it will NOT always go up forever. But this is also what you're competing against in our current market, so you WILL end up paying over listing in 99% of the cases. Never mind think of the property taxes. For instance, my property is still being assessed by the city at a value of $180k. That's nuts. At some point they will re-assess, and my taxes will go up as a result. Way up. As in probably triple. Be prepared for that as well.
I think the best way to get a feel for what things are selling for in a certain area is to use the filter for recently sold homes. In my area the Zillow market value prices pretty close to what they are selling for.
Oh, I know that going outside helps, but even Maple Ridge is insane too. Shitty one level homes going for over a mil, it's gone as far out as Mission for some of the madness. 2nd to this one. I know that in Toronto, it's basically a situation where if your realtor is letting you go in on list price, the realtor isn't worth their salt. They're basically forfeiting the house at that. I forgot to add these to my original reply, but here are the home loan interest rates since 1980 in the US. Right at the beginning of this data (31 years of it), there was definitely a scary rise that lasted about 3 years. Imagine being locked in to a fixed rate at 12% in '84 for however long you locked in for. You _can_ mitigate some risk by using shorter term fixed rates, but those rates are always prime or higher.
I still consider Maple Ridge to be part of that Vancouver zone though... it's kind of a special case. Even hot spots like Kelowna aren't that expensive, and there's a huge scarcity of houses for sale. Friend just spend $500k for a really nice 3 bedroom and good sized lot.
That's sick. Still no good if you need to live/work in Vancouver though. I suggested moving to Kamloops or Kelowna to Mel if we came back, and she basically told me to kick rocks.
Yep, totally get it. But if you’re wanting to live in/near Vancouver, then you’ll end up paying Vancouver prices. They don’t compare to 90% of the rest of the country. I also tend to think people need to reset expectations about where they buy their first home… don’t be a fresh grad on your first job and complain about not being able to buy a place in Kits. Maybe you have to look at that other city if you plan on buying a 3 bedroom place right out of the gate.
Man, this thread just makes me depressed. I don't even have a house yet, and I feel like I'm gonna be moving into a money pit. I joke. We actually signed the contract way under the asking price - however, we now realize that was because the sellers were trying to knock out all their debt, which is why we're stuck in short sale limbo until whenever. Fuck, I'm so pissed off about this.
It is a money pit. I’ve easily had to put 100K or more into my house since I moved in. My daughter was born 4 months after we closed, and while my wife was in the hospital, we needed to have our oil burner replaced. We’ve also had to replace our AC system, front walkway, retaining wall next to our driveway, new electrical work for some updated lighting and countless other shit I’ve had to do myself because the previous owner was Corky from Life Goes On. That said, I love having my own place with a yard and privacy. Even with knowing the bullshit I’ve had to deal with, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.
That can be frustrating especially when you’re playing in that half million dollar range. Personally, we aren’t there financially. But when you’re competing with cash buyers, you’re at a disadvantage if you’re a mortgage seeker. People are moving to traditionally less expensive areas from super high dollar cities. Austin and Houston for instance are in a crazy frenzy right now because people are moving here from California with a few hundred grand to spare. They sell some shack for a million two in the Bay Area and go to Austin where some basic-bitch house “only” costs $700k. That basic house though used to be 200-300k 10 years ago or less. The transplants have no clue that they are actually overpaying for Texas. But it’s cheaper by comparison, thus, the market keeps ballooning with no end in sight.
Yep, unless you spend a lot extra on a totally remodeled home or new built (which, btw, it really seems to my untrained eye that the materials used are SHIT these days on new builds), there's always something. Our house was built late 70s/early 80s. We replaced nasty carpet downstairs with premium LVP and got lucky with a neighbor with finish carpentry experience who charged us peanuts for the install. We upgraded the hot water heater, which was over 30 years old, with an energy efficient one in a new location. The roof was around 30 years old and was showing age, but we got lucky and only had to pay the deductible for a new one after a windstorm. New garage door. The deck is a current problem. The furnace and AC are the age of the house, I think, so we will have to probably replace within the next decade. Plus little things that have come up, some we can do ourselves, like replacing the garbage disposal. It doesn't stop, but it's mine, and I love it. There is a whole level of frustration, stress, and helplessness that I feel comes with living in a place you do not own. Unless you're a shitbag and just don't care about keeping things up, I guess.
New builds are a totally different crap shoot. Even the New Home Warranty is shit in most cases, unless it’s due to something very provably negligent.
Yeah, the house we have pending is a 70’s house. When we say money pit, part of that is definitely stuff we willingly want to do, because we’re excited to make it our own. That, plus a shitty market, is why we’re waiting it out. we did see a house come up for sale that’s totally a better fit, but it’s also $60k higher, so that sucks.
I think I bought my house in the best scenario possible. My parents bought it in the 70’s, and I’ve lived in it off and on since then. I know every bit of the house and any issues it has or is expected to have. Best part, didn’t have to move when I closed. All for fair market value from a third party assessment.
We had a home warranty included in our sale because we were new home owners and trying to be cautious. If the sellers offer it and you can negotiate just taking cash off the price, that's what I'd do. The warranties are shit, cover almost nothing, are more of a service plan than anything else. Waste of money.
We actually knew the house we wanted because my Dad looked at it for a vacation home. We weren't even house shopping, we rode with them to see it. We knew the asking price, but requested almost four times that number in the prequal, just in case, as advised by the realtor we picked. It made sense, because there really wasn't anything with the same features for anything close to the asking price of this place. The wife, of course, started looking at places in that price range. And there were some incredible places up that high. That is when I had to tell to slow her damn roll.