Another article showing concern in the housing market- yet the author may have lacked critical thinking

Zillow is not an unbiased source of real estate pricing predictions. They shut down their home flipping business because they were losing money on it.
In addition-I would NOT site Midway, Utah as being a typical example. Farmland is being sold-with mini mansions being built-then being purchased by Californians and others who have money to spend. The appreciation/asking prices there will probably be higher than many locations.
 
Lots of good thoughts and discussions, thanks for the contributions.

One thing I think to add to the home ownership discussion. VA loans. The Army, the national guard, and reserves are not meeting their recruiting end strength numbers as mandated by Congress. Lots is sign on bonus available, some for very nice five figures. Along with bonuses, a VA loan is a awesome loan with no money down. Lenders love VA loans, as it protects the lender against some losses in case if borrower default.

So, maybe serving in the guard or reserve is a great way for younger adults to be part of something larger than themselves, serve their country, and recive great benefits like a VA loan. The guard and reserve have some crazy good jobs they will train people on, like electric distribution, fire fighter, finance, cyber, etc.

Just a thought on how a younger person can get into a home.
Or get on an apprentice position in trades .
 
Doesn't take critical thinking to see the change happening. In my area houses went from selling over asking price in a day or 2 to sitting for weeks and prices being cut. Open houses are ghost towns
This isn't the first time it happened and probably
Anyone willing to work hard can buy a home in the USA and if not that’s life, your fault and no one owes you one. You did something wrong.
BTW averages mean nothing in regards to income and home price.
I’m surprised no one else pointed this out.

Median income, that means half the population lower half the population higher not average is the number to use.
If anybody wants a house and sustainable income with no skills or higher education than simply go to any car manufacturing plant in the United States or one of their suppliers.
You’ll make the wage with incredible benefits and you’ll be able to buy a house and this is just one very tiny tiny tiny example of all the opportunities in this country.

Social media has added a whole new class of whining people thinking it’s someone else fault for their incompetence or laziness.
Can’t buy a house? I ain’t buying one for you go figure out what your doing wrong.

Homeownership rates are the highest in the history of mankind in the USA, for the last couple decades it’s never vary more than 4% and we all know that it’s just from economic cycle swings and don’t forget the world health event just a couple years ago, gosh the complaining and whining drives me 🤪

Let’s stick to facts instead of commentary =
For now, sure. But give it a year or two! The housing market doesn't move down quickly like crypto. Patience please!
But the cost of rents goes up.
 
Money has only a perceived value.. With cripto if it goes to zero there is nothing to back its value If the dollar goes to zero the government backs its value :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 
Watching trends closely. Every trend is showing a GAIN of no less than one percent in the average price of single-family homes in the West, mountain West, Southeast, Southwest, and South.

Home still selling at record highs, and no relief in prices in sight. And now mortgage rates are seeing declines.
You have a source, because that's not what the data I am looking at is showing - Case Shiller is showing a slight dip in most markets, but that data is only up to date for August.

Also, if you look at the last housing boom - prices peaked in 2006, then flattened slowly before they plummeted all the way in 2008. From 2006-2008 everyone kept saying housing is strong - including the then federal reserve chairman. Housing is sticky as already mentioned. Not to mention any data you do have is about 3 months old based on when the offer was made and mortgage locked, as it takes a bunch of weeks to close then a bunch more for all that paperwork to get filed.

I have no idea where prices are going, but if I were making a bet I would be they are not going up a bunch more at the current time - sideways would be at best.
 
You have a source, because that's not what the data I am looking at is showing - Case Shiller is showing a slight dip in most markets, but that data is only up to date for August.

Also, if you look at the last housing boom - prices peaked in 2006, then flattened slowly before they plummeted all the way in 2008. From 2006-2008 everyone kept saying housing is strong - including the then federal reserve chairman. Housing is sticky as already mentioned. Not to mention any data you do have is about 3 months old based on when the offer was made and mortgage locked, as it takes a bunch of weeks to close then a bunch more for all that paperwork to get filed.

I have no idea where prices are going, but if I were making a bet I would be they are not going up a bunch more at the current time - sideways would be at best.
Zillow was used for that comment. I have been watching Zillow forecasts, and they seem to be conservative to what the market acutually does. The only decrease I saw on Zillow was for the very rural SW Missouri area, Zillow predicted a one percent decline, but the sales I am tracking have not shown a year over year decrease in any housing markets.

Buyers today have options in what home to buy, have the ability to negotiate, and ask for Seller concessions (such as leave the lawn tractor, etc). But I am not seeing MACRO price drops in any markets I am tracking. I am seeing listing price reductions in the Hot Springs, AR area, but the reduced listing price is still higher than what Zillow says the home should list for.

Maybe housing will come down- I am a cash buyer and that is what I am hopeful for- but I can't find a single actual indicator that points to a drop in the sale price of a house. I do see drops in home mortgage applications, drops in quantity of homes sold, but I am not seeing any reduction in the closing price of single-family home sales.
 
but the sales I am tracking have not shown a year over year decrease in any housing markets.
The market peaked in June with like a 17% one year increase - so your not likely to see a Y/Y degrease until at least next summer, and more likely longer than that.

The trend is down. As they say on wall street - the trend is your friend, until its not.
 
The market peaked in June with like a 17% one year increase - so your not likely to see a Y/Y degrease until at least next summer, and more likely longer than that.

The trend is down. As they say on wall street - the trend is your friend, until its not.
I am not seeing any month over month decrease either. Even in Illinois, likely the worst housing on a MACRO basis in the nation and a state that has lost residents for ten consecutive years is seeing monthly single family home price increases, very small, but a house in Illinois on a MACRO basis is selling for more today than the home sold for in AUG 2022.
 
I am not seeing any month over month decrease either. Even in Illinois, likely the worst housing on a MACRO basis in the nation and a state that has lost residents for ten consecutive years is seeing monthly single family home price increases, very small, but a house in Illinois on a MACRO basis is selling for more today than the home sold for in AUG 2022.
Case Shiller says Chicago is down for one month - peak in July. You need at minimum 3 months down to call it a trend, so one month of data is sort of meaningless - but FWIW anyway. Also, Your August data would be offers accepted in June - so there is that part of the unknown also.

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Case Shiller says Chicago is down for one month - peak in July. You need at minimum 3 months down to call it a trend, so one month of data is sort of meaningless - but FWIW anyway. Also, Your August data would be offers accepted in June - so there is that part of the unknown also.

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I sold/ closed a home in Illinois in AUG 2022. Thought I nailed the top of the market, and it was a home I was unable to sell for over a decade. It is now showing a worth of 5k more today than in August.

Not wanting to argue/ challenge/ debate. All I can say is from everything I am observing, I have yet to see a single quantitative drop in single family home prices. I have cash waiting to buy, my trigger point is JAN 2019 house prices, but heck I can't even get JAN 2022 house prices today.
 
Started looking into the criteria Case Shiller uses, and came across something that blew my mind.

One can buy futures on home prices. Even though no homes are part of the price. Just allows one to gamble on home prices (If I am reading this correctly).

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange hosts trading in futures and options linked to the 10-city composite Case-Shiller Index as well as indexes for each of its constituent metro areas.14 Housing sector participants can use these instruments to hedge their exposure to the cyclical industry's ups and downs. They also permit speculation on the direction of housing prices nationwide and in each of 10 key U.S. metro areas.
 
I don't think this is a debate - just sharing data. Glad you sold your house, your likely to be happy to be out of Illinois. I have family living there, they want out but have too good of jobs to leave currently.

If your target is Jan 2019 on average prices need to drop 1/3, and in a lot of markets half. I don't see that happening honesly. Not sure what inflation will do to housing, on one hand it empties peoples wallets on day to day goods. On the other hand it makes people with cash want to own tangible assets.
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange hosts trading in futures and options linked to the 10-city composite Case-Shiller Index as well as indexes for each of its constituent metro areas.14 Housing sector participants can use these instruments to hedge their exposure to the cyclical industry's ups and downs. They also permit speculation on the direction of housing prices nationwide and in each of 10 key U.S. metro areas.
I doubt its Case Shiller underwriting it - its likely an investment bank. You can buy and sell options on pretty much anything. You can even buy credit default swaps on loans that aren't yours - reference the big short.

I don't have any skin in the game. I own the house we live in but bought it long ago. My goal is to hold on to it and buy a vacation place, but I have two kids in college so I am kind of waiting to see where they might end up before making any big changes.
 
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I don't think this is a debate - just sharing data. Glad you sold your house, your likely to be happy to be out of Illinois. I have family living there, they want out but have too good of jobs to leave currently.

If your target is Jan 2019 on average prices need to drop 1/3, and in a lot of markets half. I don't see that happening honesly. Not sure what inflation will do to housing, on one hand it empties peoples wallets on day to day goods. On the other hand it makes people with cash want to own tangible assets.

I doubt its Case Shiller underwriting it - its likely an investment bank. You can buy and sell options on pretty much anything. You can even buy credit default swaps on loans that aren't yours - reference the big short.

I don't have any skin in the game. I own the house we live in but bought it long ago. My goal is to hold on to it and buy a vacation place, but I have two kids in college so I am kind of waiting to see where they might end up before making any big changes.
We lived in Midway, UT from 2018-2020. The home we rented didn't sell in early spring 2018 for $750k. The home sold in 2021 for 1.5 million, a doubling in price for a home that just three years early couldn't find a buyer.

I am a cash buyer, and if prices don't adjust, we will just buy less of a home. One advantage, our children are grown and out on their own, we can live anywhere- schools, etc are not factors for us.

Good luck in your vacation home search. My Wife enjoys a HGTV show called lake bargain home flip or something like that.
 
The home didn't sell in Midway until the pandemic hit and then many found they had the availability to work remotely and move out of the cities and expensive areas to places like Midway, Utah. Any home in a decent area of So Cal is now a million dollars. The 1.5 that home sold for is a bargain compared to where they came from.

The pandemic definitely put a dynamic in to real estate that wasn't there before-and that's a fact.
 
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The home didn't sell in Midway until the pandemic hit and then many found they had the availability to work remotely and move out of the cities and expensive areas to places like Midway, Utah. Any home in a decent area of So Cal is now a million dollars. The 1.5 that home sold for is a bargain compared to where they came from.

The pandemic definitely put a dynamic in to real estate that wasn't there before-and that's a fact.
Absolutely - the lock downs, then protests - add in work from home, and the flight from the cities started.

It also was one of the original ramps in used car prices - people used to taking public transit no longer wanted to do so, or moved away from it and needed to buy a car. Estimates were 1 to 2M - which is a huge surge in car buyers all at once.

Its starting to move back, but its a trend that will likely persist for a while.

All real estate markets in the end are local
 
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I sold/ closed a home in Illinois in AUG 2022. Thought I nailed the top of the market, and it was a home I was unable to sell for over a decade. It is now showing a worth of 5k more today than in August.

Not wanting to argue/ challenge/ debate. All I can say is from everything I am observing, I have yet to see a single quantitative drop in single family home prices. I have cash waiting to buy, my trigger point is JAN 2019 house prices, but heck I can't even get JAN 2022 house prices today.
Same goes for our area of SC, acknowledged as a hot spot right now and I can confirm and we just sold our house (closed) this month. I was surprised multiple offers the first weekend it was on the market, we were in contract by that Monday after the weekend.

I can say, as you know, we were looking in the extreme Northeastern Florida area and home prices have leveled out there and some good deals offered by builders if you jumped on them fast enough. Yet, that area saw stupid high price increases over the last few years and it is acknowledged as an overpriced market there. (Jacksonville area)
The coast of NC and SC seems to be holding its pricing but it's definitely not going higher and some good deals around if you're ready to jump, higher priced 450+ are definitely taking a hit but mid price 340 to 440 not much other than home production builders clear out from time to time.

Come to think of it, maybe that is why the mid range here is holding its own, people thinking like you who may rethink the big home experience and rationalize maybe something more modest.
 
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Case Shiller came out just now - down 1% for September national average. 3 months make a trend in my mind.

 
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