Home buying thread

Captain Suave

Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
5,870
10,059
Massively increasing supply

"Massively increasing supply" is only true relative to the recent all-time bottom. We're not even close to oversupplying the market. 2005-2010 is what a bubble looks like. And it's even worse than this chart would indicate because in the background the population has grown by 50% since 1980.

1755705756651.png


means lower prices

Here's the relationship between inventory and price. At best the current demand mismatch going to roughly flatten prices on an illiquid market. They just don't drop significantly unless people are forced to sell en masse like '08-'10.

1755701818606.png

Anything above zero is increasing:
1755706363885.png


and it means those sellers that are under water are going to be under water even more so they are still stuck. It would help first time buyers though.

If builders are not putting up starter homes and owners of existing properties are underwater if prices fall, who is going to sell low to first time buyers? Look at the activity of first-time buyers and the ages of people who DO buy. It's the same boomers/GenX churning houses between themselves and rolling over their wealth.

1755703136757.png
1755703107262.png


Affordability is extremely low right now and it's going to correct to the mean eventually. A bunch of people are going to end up under water again until inflation catches up. I don't see a way out of this corner that they have been painted into by a number of factors. The boom & bust is inherent in the way our money works.

Yeah, I think the market is going to be mostly stagnant until inflation drives up wages to match the nominal home prices. Then the march up will continue. We might see some temporary adjustment of mid single digit percentages, or even 10%+, but that doesn't put a dent in the spike of the last five years. It's also going to be a only for a historically tiny number of properties with the vast majority of homeowners sitting in place.

There just isn't going to be some broad-based 40% recalibration for tens of millions of homes that makes housing feel affordable for everyone that could possibly want to buy. Housing is going to remain expensive until we catch up on 15 years of under-development and then build faster than the population grows. That doesn't seem likely to happen, so it's just going to remain expensive.
 
Last edited:

Gravel

Mr. Poopybutthole
43,665
153,622
They keep saying that this is going to be the biggest wealth transfer in history as the Boomers die off, but the oldest are about to hit 80 next year, and it doesn't seem like it's happening.
 

Captain Suave

Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
5,870
10,059
They keep saying that this is going to be the biggest wealth transfer in history as the Boomers die off, but the oldest are about to hit 80 next year, and it doesn't seem like it's happening.

The inheritors will roll it deeper into real estate and drive prices up, lol.
 
Last edited:

Cad

scientia potentia est
<Bronze Donator>
28,517
61,938
They keep saying that this is going to be the biggest wealth transfer in history as the Boomers die off, but the oldest are about to hit 80 next year, and it doesn't seem like it's happening.
My boomer parents are already dead, not that they left anything worthwhile anyway.
 

Intrinsic

Person of Whiteness
<Gold Donor>
16,111
15,247
I've been doing some reading and spending too much time seeing how to approach the home build. So here are more stream of thought notes to try and organize my thoughts... I'm using "mortgage" interchangeably with total escrow payment

It seems like there is a benefit (currently) to going through the build process that I wasn't really aware of. Excel'ing it out, I was toying with ideas:
  • Purchase lot with cash for $100k
  • Do the construction loan for whatever that ends up being (I assumed $780k)
  • Make the payments on the construction loan during the 12 - 18 month build process or whatever it is (assuming 1 year minimum)
  • While making those payments, go ahead and use our extra cash flow to make payments against principal (cash flow less construction loan payment > principal, will vary based on point in process)
  • At the end of construction convert to mortgage, we could pay down the mortgage an additional $100k during the construction process so the final mortgage amount.
  • Depending on the lender and what happens to rates over the next 12 - 18 months, we could potentially "float down" the rate on the construction loan to a lower permanent rate, if they fall.
  • We have the new mortgage, at the reduced principal (maybe reduced rate), and make our payments or whatever as normal.
  • Sell old house and have an extra $150k in cash ready to put back in brokerage or another lump sum payment to house, whatever.
  • By 18 months we have one kid out of daycare which frees up an additional $1,300 cashflow
There are some opportunity costs that come into play versus just buying an $850k house and what we do with our cash flow. The 12 - 18 month period offers a little more flexibility with the potential benefits of owning the land upfront, making earlier principal payments, getting one kid out of daycare, potential lower interest (if we speculate they'll fall over the next year).

I think the opportunity cost on 18 months of shifting cash flow from 100% investing is minimal, but there are "soft" benefits. And there's nothing saying we couldn't just spend 18 months making extra payments on a home purchase. Of course, not knowing anything about the process the headaches with building may outweigh the convenience of just buying something and moving in :p

Also, based on y'all's feedback I'm getting answers to estimates for things not included in the ~$220/sqft. Making sure we really understand the site prep, any electrical or water costs, uncovered areas, etc.

Regarding the inventory discussion, almost everything here is falling price wise daily. Our Zillow emails have had a lot of "Price Cuts" on houses we tagged.