Awesome to pay off your mortgage, Bunsen. That’s got to be a great feeling!
I’ve been window shopping for houses in CA. Holy Cow. Hope we can afford to move back in a couple of years. Congrats to Jymson on buying a house in a sizzling hot market! I figure, worse comes to worse, we will end up in Northern California (way north, lol) rather than in San Diego, which is looking very attractive to me after three winters in MN. Husband slipped on the ice on Mon. while taking out the garbage and broke three ribs. I think it is too dangerous for people like us to live in cold climates.
^^ I still can remember Paul had a 4 bedroom house in Minneapolis for about $50K in the 80’s
Austin real estate values soaring. The house across from me just sold to a californian couple for 100K more than it sold for just a few years ago. Crazy. My taxes are going to be outrageous and I will have to move!
I thought sales prices in Austin, Texas are not recorded. Prices are recorded?
You can see the listing prices on the online real estate websites, (more trustworthy than Zillow.) In my neighborhood, several local real estate agents put real estate info articles in our neighborhood newsletter, including all houses and condos for sale, number pending, number sold, listed prices and sold prices, price per square foot, days on the market, etc. We have a self-contained neighborhood, and they include all properties in our neighborhood. In general, going rate is about 200$ a square foot now… I don’t believe prices are recorded officially. They should be. I am sure these prices seem low to New Yorkers and Californians, but they seem very high for Texans.
I agree the prices should be recorded. If prices aren’t recorded, how does the government come up with an assessed value? Do you think the government does a good job coming up with assessed value.
Just to show how some markets are depressed, here’s a link to a 2,700 sq. ft. Homepath (Fannie Mae Foreclosure) home in my hometown that just sold. The final asking price was $54,000, and the likely sales price was under $50,000. Be sure to look at the photos. I think they first put this on the market at around $135,000, and just slowly lowered the price until they found a buyer. So it sold for less than $20 a square foot.
http://www.homepath.com/listing?listingid=45355346
Here’s another home, about 4,600 sq. ft. that was sold through Homepath about 18 months ago. They started in at $250,000 and the final sales price was $90,000 to $100,000. It is nicely restored. Again, it sold for about $20 a square foot.
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/127-W-Gholson-Ave-Holly-Springs-MS-38635/90013353_zpid/
I just thought some of you might find this interesting. To see what a house is like that someone would dare to ask $100 per foot for, follow this link: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/330-Salem-Ave-Holly-Springs-MS-38635/90031170_zpid/
The school rating on the $100 / sf house is only 5-6 that affect the price. In outer SF Bay Area, you can get similar rated school district homes for about $200 /sf, lessor quality home though. That of course is no comparison to ground zero - Palo Alto where you may pay $3000 / sf just to get the land. Home would be a tear down.
Earl, those prices are incredible. Wow.
Wow, the brick Greek Revival place is gorgeous.
Earl, it’s not just the prices that are incredible. I’d love to take on a restoration project when dh retires and that Salem Ave. home would be so much fun.
As for the school ratings, while I do not dispute their effect on house prices, please keep in mind that Zillow’s information may be wrong. I just checked two houses for sale on our street and found each one has different assigned schools listed. Of the six schools, only one is correct. We live in an unincorporated area where our assigned county high school is actually rated higher than the schools of the closest two cities. Unfortunately, we’ve learned that many people prefer the lower rated city high schools because of their football teams. People are willing to pay significantly higher property taxes in order for their kids to play on the football (and other sports) teams. I only want to caution that if you’re buying don’t rely on Zillow for school information and if you’re selling check all real estate sites to make certain your information is correct.
@dstark, it used to be possible in Texas to list your house through MLS but keep the sales price private. All you had to do was ask for nondisclosure. IIRC, that changed in 2012, right before we listed our house. I remember this because DH asked our realtor if we could request nondisclosure of our sales price. She said it had just changed. If you sell your house in Texas while listed through MLS, you cannot request non disclosure. Some people get around this by taking it off MLS, then selling it to someone who actually saw it through MLS. Our realtor works for a large Texas brokerage firm, and they say they are not comfortable with that way of getting around the law, so when we sold, it became part of the record through MLS.
The way you find out sales prices of homes in Texas is to have access to MLS, through a realtor.
You aren’t required to disclose the sales price if you do a FSBO or don’t list your home through MLS.
I THINK I’ve got this correct.
DS’s house -purchase-in-process had the appraisal done today. Stay tuned. The cost per sq ft is not quite Palo Alto prices, but they are SF prices, and thus are ridiculous, as in like $775/sq ft.
@jym626, WOW!
Nrdsb4, thanks.
Our town had a reassessment done last summer. The new values were recently send to us and we are a little shocked at the results. Our house came in significantly lower than our neighbor down the street. Our house is honestly much nicer when it comes to pretty much everything. The yard is maintained as opposed to their overgrown, no lawn habitat. We also have done some upgrades that are very visible from the outside. I wouldn’t mind if the tax bill decreased , but not the actual value. The house next to ours which is very similar recently sold for a lot less than we owe on ours , but it was a shortsale
Wow is right! It boggles the mind, nrdsb4. Its like monopoly money to me!
We’re just about to list our house that we’ve lived in since our youngest was 1 year old – 23 years ago! We’re in the Houston area in a very close-in desirable incorporated city (with zoning) about 7 miles from downtown Houston and about 3 miles from Rice University. We’re listing our house for an amount that’s about 3X what we paid for it in 1992. The inventory in our area is very low and a house near us listed at $745,000 and got 18 offers in less than a week and over half of them were over $800,000. Wish us luck!
Blackeyedsusan, good luck. 