LG,
Thanks for raising this issue, as it hits close to home. <ggg>
I have been shopping for a a house in the vicinity of Cambridge MA, and prices are quite disheartening. It looks like 600-800K is average, for anything within 40 minute commute time. It is almost impossible to touch anything in the $400K range, unless it needs a minimum of 100K work, not to mention most of these homes are 80 years old.
I have taken the tact of low balling the seller, which has been met with much resistance from the realtors. They employ the hard sell tactics like, "there's another offer, or the market is as hot as I've ever seen". I have some time, so will continue stalling and low balling until "the right deal comes along". In the mean time, I'll continue to try and make a winning bet in the market occasionally.
Also, I have put a modicum of effort into finding houses for sale by owner, in an attempt to cut out the middleman. Those 6% commissions turn my stomach, and I've already had some rather annoying conversations with the brokers who actually had the gall to try and convince me the commission comes out of the sellers pocket. The FSBO market looks too thin to be a viable method of home purchasing. Maybe it just has not caught on yet. Or, maybe many people have a lot more money than me, and don't care what they pay for a house <ggg>. The bottom line is prices have not let up at all yet.
Lower interest rates just creates more demand, and may actually cause prices to continue higher. The only hope for lower prices is higher unemployment, for which there is some evidence. A recent example would be the Polaroid lay offs (one thousand people, I believe). |
