It’s not a very promising endeavor these days. Housing prices have plummeted, which seems like it would be great for potential buyers, but actually just has led to a dearth of opportunities to buy a house. People who purchased their home during the good years are very reluctant to sell their homes at such a low price. I can’t say I blame them for not wanting to take a $50,000-1 mil. loss on their homes, but it’s making my endeavor pretty slow going.
On the other hand, I have to admit that I’m not really helping my own cause either. I am looking for somewhat of a high-end home, but I’m not willing to pay above market price, even though I know that the people selling these houses are generally already taking a significant loss even with their original asking price. For instance, the other day I saw two houses that two years ago, when they were built, were each valued at somewhere around $3 mil. Now, the owners are half-heartedly selling them starting at $2.75 mil.
Now, the houses and properties were both very nice. One had a particularly beautiful backyard that included a mini-orchard as part of the landscaping as well as an outdoor kitchen with two gas grill islands (not sure why, but it did) and a bar. And a quarter-of-a-million dollars is a serious loss for them, but the actual market value for those houses right now is closer to $2 mil. It just doesn’t make sense to me to overpay by half-a-million dollars just to get a house.
Is that unreasonable? I guess I’ll find out in a year or two if the property values go back up and I end up paying full price.
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