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How long do you plan to wait before buying?

EastSiderEastSider
edited April 2007 in Seattle Real Estate
I'm just curious on how long most of you are planning to wait before buying a home? Even if the current boom ends today, it may take years for the market to reach the bottom. Worst case is that the current boom lasts for the next few years & then takes a few more years to hit a bottom.

For those who are currently renting....how long are you willing to wait before buying a home? What is your tipping point?

Comments

  • AlanAlan
    Although if prices do not drop in four years then I will be leaving the area instead of buying.

    Unless I win some sort of lottery.
  • meshugymeshugy
    I'll probably sell my current house in about three years. At that time I should have a good down payment saved up for a house in the 800K or higher range. And should also have nearly 300K in equity in my current house. I'd really like a nice craftsman on Sunset hill. Hopefully by 2010!
  • EastSiderEastSider
    If you haven't participated in the poll yet -- pls take a moment to do so.
  • Ex-IzzyEx-Izzy
    Alan wrote:
    Although if prices do not drop in four years then I will be leaving the area instead of buying.
    We sold our home last year and did leave the area. In fact, I'm writing this from the sunny epicenter of the southwest bubble, where we're renting from a textbook case FB.

    We're considering moving back, (Olympia, maybe?) but we'll wait to see how things look in six months to a year -- if our rental house isn't foreclosed on first, that is.
  • AwaySoonerAwaySooner
    Probably 1 more year cause the wife wants a house real bad, I am trying to hold her off. We sold our condo in Kirkland for a pretty good profit, we are renting now. Have my money in some risky stuffs too, gold, chinese stocks, oil service company, WM puts :). Let's see if the Seattle RE market goes kaput first or me.
  • small_far_uglysmall_far_ugly
    Wow, I think it's really hard to ascribe a timetable to it since none of us know what's going to happen. I havea hard time saying I'm going to do it in X years. I'm going to keep an eye on the median home prices and interest rates. If either one ticks upward with any consistency, maybe I make a move.

    Interest rates are the most interesting to me, because it does no good to wait out a number of years for the price to go down (and nobody's sure it will) but interest rates jump back up to let's say 7%. You've gained nothing.

    I'm watching both, and if they are both in a holding pattern, I don't buy. I'll buy when one of those metrics goes down significantly, or it becomes obvious that they won't. But I don't see any harm in waiting, and if I really do get PRICED OUT FOREVER I'll move to Denver.

    Buying in the immediate future is a bad decision IMO, because the reason to 'buy now!' is long gone. The big gains have been had and spent. It's the rough equivalent of coming up with a snappy comeback a day after you needed it.
  • bilirubenbiliruben
    I'm going to watch San Diego. As soon as they start coming off the bottom, I'll buy up. They seem to be about 6 months to a year a head of us in their cycle.
  • Puget SounderPuget Sounder
    I'm not worried about being "priced out forever" because my career doesn't tie me to Seattle. I could easily find a job in the Twin Cities (native midwesterner, Wisconsin by birth. I can handle negative degrees fahrenheit), Austin, TX (don't mind the humidity -- Wisconsin has similar), Denver, CO (like the skiing & the cheap home prices), or Portland (most of Seattle's amenities at 20-40% less -- and Oregon salaries are pretty decent even with state income tax).
  • EastSiderEastSider
    Puget Sounder wrote:
    I'm not worried about being "priced out forever" because my career doesn't tie me to Seattle. I could easily find a job in the Twin Cities (native midwesterner, Wisconsin by birth. I can handle negative degrees fahrenheit), Austin, TX (don't mind the humidity -- Wisconsin has similar), Denver, CO (like the skiing & the cheap home prices), or Portland (most of Seattle's amenities at 20-40% less -- and Oregon salaries are pretty decent even with state income tax).

    I guess some of us don't have that flexibility :(
  • Lake Hills RenterLake Hills Renter
    The only way to be "priced out forever" is to think home prices will grow to the sky regardless of what local salaries can actually support, i.e. they aren't based on economic fundamentals. It may happen in bubbles like now, but historical data shows it reverts back to the mean supported by those fundamentals. Someone might be priced out for a relatively short time (I am right now, unless I was a risky loan), but not "forever". That is, of course, for people that have a salary that can afford a home in a normal market. The lower end salaries probably are priced out until they can make enough to afford a lower end home.
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