buying a house and the bidding got a wee bit emotional this weekend.

[rh71]

it's always nice to not be desperate for the house. That way you can play the game like you did. We loved ours and had to have it. We wound up paying $8k less than asking price anyway. Originally offered $10k less than asking price and they said an older couple put an offer in... then they backed out. Whatever... for $2k more I didn't care... I wanted the house.

 

Originally posted by: welst10
I know a guy who bought a house in short hills, nj for 150,000 30 years ago now it's worth 1.5M.

Nearly everyone who bought a house 30 years ago has seen many hundred percent appreciation climbs.

 

[GasX]

Originally posted by: rh71
it's always nice to not be desperate for the house. That way you can play the game like you did. We loved ours and had to have it. We wound up paying $8k less than asking price anyway. Originally offered $10k less than asking price and they said an older couple put an offer in... then they backed out. Whatever... for $2k more I didn't care... I wanted the house.

Yep - we were willing to walk away from anything higher than what we will be paying. We played a similar game on another house and did not get it.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: ThePresence

Everyone wants to buy low and sell high, but the market doesn't always allow for that. Improvements cost money too, why do you assume that you will be able to sell it for more than you put into it? I know next to nothing about real estate, but I'm geuinely curious how one goes about figuring these things out.

First of all, it takes time. It took us 6 months of looking and I was on top of every new listing once we'd seen everything that was already for sale. Coldwell Banker used to have a public direct MLS site that showed new listings for the day in Sacramento county. They've since taken it down.

You want to buy the biggest POS on the street. Our house hadn't been painted in at least 20 years and was a horrible dark lime color. The hardwood floors had been covered with carpet, were orange, were warped in some places, and were covered with about 1" of dog hair throughout the house. Windows were all single pane aluminum and each and every one was cracked. The yard was in a state of total neglect and didn't have a working irrigation system. The roof was shake. The vinyl on the kitchen floor had holes. The house had an awful sour smell. BUT the foundation was solid, the neighborhood was amazing, and the price was low. We were blessed to be chosen from 12 bidders on that first day it opened. I did about half the repairs myself and shopped around and hired affordable skilled workman to do the other jobs.

Our house is now, literally, worth double what we paid for it 2 1/2 years ago. That's a combination of skyrocketing home prices in Sacramento, our improvements, and having bought the house undervalued in the first place.

 

[GasX]

Originally posted by: SampSon
Looks like a very nice early 20th century, post WW1 house.

ding ding ding - winner

It's a 1920 Craftsman Center Hall Colonial

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: Mwilding

Originally posted by: SampSon
Looks like a very nice early 20th century, post WW1 house.

ding ding ding - winner

It's a 1920 Craftsman Center Hall Colonial

heh my farm house is about that old.

be warned such old houses have err "personalities". ours is pretty noisy at night and other things.

But i still love the house. to bad it needed more work then the house you are getting.

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

Originally posted by: Mwilding

Originally posted by: SampSon
Looks like a very nice early 20th century, post WW1 house.

ding ding ding - winner

It's a 1920 Craftsman Center Hall Colonial

congrats Mwilding!

:beer:

 

[maziwanka]

congrats on the house. i like how it belonged to indians before. hahahaha

 

[DBL]

Congrats on the house! It must feel especially good knowing you stuck to your guns.

I bought my condo in 2002 for almost 10% off asking in an extremely hot market, due to a motivated seller. Luckily, it's appreciated at least 50% since then, based on other sales in the building. I can't remember how many people told me I paid too much.

 

[cronos]

wow. beautiful house. congrats! :beer:

 

[SUOrangeman]

Try this on for size ...

Northern Virginia, within 10 miles of Washington DC (more like 5 to 7), early March 2004 ...

3-level townhouse with finished walk-out basement, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 baths listed at $245K. 31 contracts received in 48 hours. My bid of $265K finished 11th, with the top bid at $295K.

Bought a 2-level, 2BR+2BA condo within 50 steps of aforementioned townhouse. Went to settlement and got the keys early July 2004. Similar 2BR+2BA units within the complex are now listed at $20K over what I paid.

And everyone claims that this bubble will burst one day. I say, "Yeah, in 2050."

-SUO