<p>It depends on what you buy after the sell, right? </p>
<p>If you sell a place for 1 million at the peak…and buy a place for 2 million…right now you lost more than if you stayed put…</p>
<p>If you sold at 1 mil…and bought another place for 500,000 at the peak…you are ahead…</p>
<p>Of course…I am not considering the costs of buying and selling…</p>
<p>Here’s a closer look at a family I described earlier, using rounded numbers.</p>
<p>Purchased home in 1999 for $400k.
Sold that home at height of market for $850k
(tax assessed value was $670k at time of sale. Present tax assesment is $630k)</p>
<p>That same family purchased a much larger home in the same neighborhood at height of market for $1.15million. At the time the tax assessment was $700k.
The present tax assessment is still $700k.</p>
<p>All public records.</p>
<p>Yeah…if they didn’t do these transactions…they would be financially ahead…</p>
<p>Maybe they though it was worth it though…</p>
<p>No?</p>
<p>At the time, prices were increasing at a crazy rate, they had always loved house #2, and decided to pounce on it when it came on the market. I think they closed on it the exact day the market started its plunge. They still love the house, and have no plans on leaving. Very eager buyers and very bad timing equals retiring in place.</p>
<p>My business, here on the left coast, is involved in a broad spectrum of markets. In the last six months we have seen a remarkable upswing in orders. We design parts for everything from medical applications to consumer goods. The only market that we have not had at least a 30% increase in are products related to the housing industry.
H, however, is in a below-the-line film industry job. He has not worked for so long, that we now call it semi-retirement. No one makes movies in LA anymore. :(</p>
<p>I value my home as worth nothing…any fluctuations in price are absolutely meaningless unless you are selling…so to think it is worth X today is a waste of thought…</p>
<p>“In the last six months we have seen a remarkable upswing in orders.”
:)</p>
<p>"So…is the economy getting better? </p>
<p>-Not at all. First year with no bonus, more cuts in work force at my place.<br>
There are some cooked up numbers that will show great improvements. There are many who believe in cooked up numbers. I am not one of them. I am just praying that it will not get worse much faster as a current rate of going down the hill. I do not have any hopes that it will stay even at this level, as far as I can see it is going to get much worse and at faster rate than currently.</p>
<p>I just talked to a builder, and he said in Marin County in Ca, there is no improvement in the construction business this year compared to last year.</p>
<p>^This is good, awesome actually that he did not mention that it is worse. So, maybe there is a hope, alhouhg there are other markets, but Real Estate has always been the best indicator.</p>
<p>eastcoast, not sure you can actually say this unless you had a sale:
So qdogpa is more accurate with this post.
</p>
<p>Thanks, limabeans.</p>
<p>I’m not actually worried about my home’s value at all. I was using my house as an example of the wide swings in the market in the past decade using the following as comps:</p>
<p>Homes within a block of my house which were all built within a year of one another, by two comparable builders, of comparable materials. We are the low end homes of the neighborhood. Original owners paid between $180K and $230K in the mid 1990’s.</p>
<p>I was basing my estimate of my home’s value on comps within a 5 block area of very similar homes that have sold in the last 10 years. I think it was an accurate assesment. </p>
<p>Realtors in our area do not believe the bubble is finished deflating. Homes that are priced well sell quickly, but there are homes that sit and sit as well… as opposed to a decade ago when a home would only be on the market for one open house. Multiple offers were common, and serious offers came with escalation clauses. That is not happening now.</p>
<p>You are right, home values only matter when you are actually trying to sell, but perception of home value colors the feelings of financial well being for many people. And perceptions of financial well being affect other purchasing decisions.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Same here. </p>
<p>I doubt no one was really immune from the downturn in the last several years. Even though they still have paychecks coming in every month, their net worth (401K, investments etc) certainly suffered.</p>
<p>Well ,if you held your investments, you have likely recouped all your losses,and if you invested on a regular basis, you may be actually ahead!!! The S & P has returned 100%+ since the lows in 2009</p>
<p>The net worth of households are down 13% from the highs.</p>
<p>^^^Are you including home values in that figure? ^^ i have never counted my home’s perceived value as an asset,it may be worth something when we sell in the future…</p>
<p>Yes…most people have their wealth in their homes…</p>
<p>1% of the population owns 40 to 50% of the financial assets.</p>
<p>10% of the population owns a large majority of the financial assets.</p>
<p>The rise in financial asset values isn’t directly helping most people.</p>
<p>I think that some stores in the malls are doing well but a lot of mom and pop sub and pizza shops are not. The high-end seems to be doing well so someone’s making decent money but the middle-class (the real middle-class; not the up to $250K group) is still seeing a tough time.</p>
<p>I agree with BCEagle91.</p>
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<p>There is trickle-down though. I’m definitely spending quite a bit more these days though some of that is for household creation. Some of it is for work flexibility, some of it is for working out too. If there are many people doing the same, then it does help those that provide services and products.</p>