Buy now or wait 12 months?

mking

Hi. I watch homes in the Renton area pretty actively.

Have seen alot of price drops, and have seen agressively priced homes selling pretty quickly. Obviously, other fence sitters have decided now was the right time.

If your still a fence sitter, why have you decided to wait?

If your a recent purchaser, what made you buy now?

One thing I do find odd....I moved to WA in 1989. Bought a rambler in Fed Way for $120k, my payment was $1050 a month, 10% down, interest rate was over 10%.

Now I can buy a $240k ramber in Renton, for a payment of about $1250/month. Compared to 1989, that doesnt seem like such a bad deal.
Thanks

Relo

I'm a fence sitter. I'm looking at homes on East side (Redmond/Ridge) and have been tracking Camwest communities (Woodlands and Tyler Creek) and Murray Franklyn (Chandler community), but nothing I could find below $500K.

To me, if I could buy a relatively new home on East side (Redmond/Sammamish) for $430 - $480K, that would be pretty close to bottom.

I decided to wait for the reason that people who bought for more than $500K are going to walk away pretty soon to save some 100K or so by going for foreclosure.

ira s

While the monthly payment for a home purchased now might not be significantly higher than one purchased in 1989, the property taxes sure will be, as well as the homeowner's insurance. I bought my house in 1998, and taxes have nearly tripled since then.

SeattleMoose

Rent for another year. The Alt-A wave is just rearing up. Prices will continue to drop the next year. Nothing is worse than buying a place and then wishing you had waited. It could take a long time to recover your downpayment equity if you become "underwater".

Yet, listening to mortgage company ads (what a shock) you'd think the bottom was April, I mean May, I mean June, I mean July.......and remember it is ALWAYS a great time to buy!!!! (and pay for my Mercedes).

deejayoh

SeattleMoose wrote:

Rent for another year. The Alt-A wave is just rearing up. Prices will continue to drop the next year. Nothing is worse than buying a place and then wishing you had waited. It could take a long time to recover your downpayment equity if you become "underwater".

Yet, listening to mortgage company ads (what a shock) you'd think the bottom was April, I mean May, I mean June, I mean July.......and remember it is ALWAYS a great time to buy!!!! (and pay for my Mercedes).

I am starting to think the alt-a wave locally is going to be a big non-event.

check out the stats here for Washington
http://www.newyorkfed.org/mortgagemaps/

According to FACL/The Fed there are only 15 alt-a loans per 1000 households in Washington State (1.5% of all households) so the impact can't be huge.
4.9% of those are in foreclosure (0.075% of all HH)
8% of those alt-a loans reset in the next 12 months (0.12% of all HH)

Eyeballing it, the loans seem to be going bad at about a third the rate of sub-prime loans.

Unless I am reading the data wrong, I don't get it.

Markor

I'm a fence sitter. I'll wait for the homebuyer credit to expire, if it does. Winter is the best time to buy usually. I'm picky with a constrained location so nothing may be available. The seller may refuse to take another 10% haircut. I'll hope there is not a run on the banks in the meantime. Another stock market crash would be helpful though to weaken sellers' resolve. I'd like to buy my landlord's house for a fair price.

I suspect house prices will keep falling for another 5+ years (real basis), but if the price is low enough I'll accept the further fall.

Markor

Relo wrote:

To me, if I could buy a relatively new home on East side (Redmond/Sammamish) for $430 - $480K, that would be pretty close to bottom.

It depends on the house, but I doubt it. I'd say more like $350K would be in line with general inflation (plus some) since before the bubble began.