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make that " we've been interested in"
Buy a foreclosre, this way any future price declines are built into the price.
rent a nicer/bigger house for one year... You'll be glad you did!
What's happening to you? Perhaps you had a crisis in a small space recently. <grin>
If a person is planning to buy and stay for a while, a decade or two or three, then the factors of the financial decision tree are quite different than if you are planning to move in a couple of years. There if more to the thought process than money. The people who are in the biggest trouble today are those who've purchased in the last few years. However, buying an upper end home (and yes, 1.3 million is an upper end home in SoCal), you will always have a slower market than if you have a more average home. Does this matter to you? Only you know for sure.
LOL I.O.
Start looking and getting ready now for a plan to buy in the next year.
That way you will feel as if you are working toward the purchase but moving slow enough to continue to make informed calculated decisions
"rent a nicer/bigger house for one year... You'll be glad you did!"
I tried to convince my wife to do that a year ago (could have sold my current house for 850K then, could probably get 650K now), but ultimately my wife couldn't get comfortable with being a renter so we never pulled the trigger.
If you have a house to sell, then why are you even considering buying now? Get that house sold!
Take some vacation time and make a road trip in some big open spaces (try Salt Lake City and back, or Flagstaff / Grand Canyon). It will clear your head and help re-establish your priorities. Don't be afraid to check out RE prices along the way, to remind yourself how nutty L.A. is.
"If you have a house to sell, then why are you even considering buying now? Get that house sold!"
obviously this guy is a rich guy, he doesn't care keeping the current house and buy another one.
Good suggestions, thanks everyone. I think if I set a specific target date (Spring 2009) for buying regardless of whether we're at the bottom or not, it will help me resist the temptation to buy now (obviously way too early in this cycle).
I.O.
Just wondering. Are you planning to sell your current home to buy or will you keep it and rent it out?
Dang, I thought my hypnotic powers were starting to take effect. Back to the drawing board.
"Just wondering. Are you planning to sell your current home to buy or will you keep it and rent it out?"
I'll probably sell it. I've been a landlord before and I'm not convinced it's worth the trouble.
I wont buy until I see blood on the streets...
I have been watching the market in my area for quit some time. I too have been tempted to buy on a couple of occasions since prices have been in steady decline. I will probably wait until the first quarter of 09 to buy. I may make a couple of low balls this fall or winter to test the waters.
That is my plan anyway....That is until the idiotic Fed brings the correction to a screeching halt with this: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080419/rush_to_regulation.html
i can't believe i agree with bush on something.
Homes are overpriced, especially in Alpine New Jersey. Offer 50% of asking.
LOL I.O. you should just buy.
If I were you I wont listent to these doomers and just buy now. it is a great time to buy and you will not be able to time the bubbles bottom perfect. we are very close to the bottom now.
you think prices may drop another 30%. if you feel you can spare 390K (30% of 1.3M) to live in a house one year in advance then go for it. If I had that decision to make and had 390k to spare i still wouldn't move, i don't think anyone should feel they have 390 to spare just for the kicks of it.
Money is useful stuff. I trade money for things that I need and things that make me happy. For example, I trade money for food which I need; I trade money for a cleaning service which makes me happy. I'm happier having spent that money than keeping it. OTOH, having cash reserves contributes to my sense of security, which also makes me happy. So I don't trade money for things I might really like (culinary tour of Japan, for example) until I have enough left over after cash reserves, plus the day to day stuff. Delaying that gratification can be a little frustrating but only until I realize the delay is actually ensuring day to day happiness.
Buy now or wait? Weigh the potential "lost" money from depreciation out on the happiness scale. Would spending it now, and gaining the value of happiness in the larger home now, outweigh holding on to the money another year and deferring that particular happiness but also not losing the money?
FWIW, I'm going through that very argument in my head. Rent = buy, but if I waited, I could probably get a nicer house for the same $$ next year. OTOH, there's a real value to me in having my own home, my own garden, my own workshop and sewing room and all that...
Good points everyone and I think I was only experiencing a temporary lose of sanity since I'm still more or less resigned to waiting another year before I do anything. In my case, it's a little more complicated than just throwing away 400K since I currently own a home and it is depreciating too. There's also the consideration of the possibility for the money that would be used toward the purchase of a bigger house to lose value even though it's fairly conservatively invested in a mix of bond, equity and money market funds.
All in all, I still think it's way to early in this cycle to buy (at least in southern California) and the smart move financially is to wait at least a year before doing anything.
make
should read "loss" of sanity
I wonder how many other people are going to wait until next year. I look at it this way...
On Zillow, I take mosts posts to be representative of the thoughts of most Americans, with a couple of doomer exceptions.
I've been watching posts here over the past couple of weeks by doomers begin to tone down, with at least two (not that I'm more than casually counting) doomers thinking they might buy, and from posters who took the plunge and bought a house.
Could it be that pent up demand will override market forces, and maybe even start to turn things around? When everyone out there starts talking about market turn around how long do you think the bottom will still be there?
dear bro - it is not going to drop anymore so start looking for homes. you should be fully involved in the buying process to time the right deals. if you are sitting outside on the side lines you really don't know what is happening. so start putting offers even if it is lowball ones. you will learn what the market is. my 2 cents
Here, why don't you instead be tempted to buy food before you starve to death
daniel, you've looked for your "silver lining" time and time again on here, and yet...
Sure, some will fall for the dead cat bounce, and buy today... However, with foreclosures climbing even faster than pending contracts, you can be sure that when the long dog days of late summer hit with higher amounts of REO on almost every market, the price slide will continue right into the winter of our discontent...
in the tech bubble
yahoo (YHOO) stock was at $250
today its about $28
anyways
good luck
It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, but then we had nothing before us, we thought were all going direct to heaven, but in fact we were all going direct to negative equity.
-Dickens (paraphrased)
... and, it's free and anonymous
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Help Me, I'm Starting To Be Tempted To Buy
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interested_observer
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After noticing that the starting prices for new homes that we've been interested have dropped from 1.8M a year and half ago to 1.3M now (a 500K decrease) I'm actually starting to be tempted to make a move. I live in southern California and I believe that prices will continue to decrease by another 20 to 30% but we're getting tired of living in a house that's about half as big as we want (and can afford). What's happening to me?
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