The market is pretty strong in my county right now. I started looking at houses and prices about two weeks ago. A friend is house shopping and my co-worker and I have been perusing the listings. It's been interesting because prices are climbing steadily and inventory is tight. If a house is nice and priced right it isn't for sale long.
I looked at my neighborhood (about a five block radius) and in the past four months there have been four sales all about $300k. Currently there is a house listed for $325k one street over from ours. It is a slightly smaller house, smaller lot and only a single car garage.
Zillow has our house estimated at $285k. If comparable houses are selling at $300k I think it is more reasonable to say our market value is $300k. It's rather exciting to gain value even when it really doesn't matter for us right now.
There are still plenty of foreclosures. I know some people just walked away because they didn't *want* to pay the inflated mortgage when the house lost value. Of course there are also people who couldn't afford such a huge payment anymore. At the height of the bubble our house sold for $506k.
Is the market gaining steam in your area too?
House Values
March 3rd, 2013 at 10:50 pm
March 4th, 2013 at 01:46 am 1362361608
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March 4th, 2013 at 05:17 pm 1362417423
I admit that scouring Zillow to see what is out there is one of my favorite past-times. My impression is that the number of short sales and foreclosures seem to be decreasing.