That's just part of the puzzle. Any houses that have sold recently will generally have pictures on HAR or other real estate websites. You can establish your case by comparing to your own crappy house. Of course, if your house is nicer, you don't show them pictures.
+1,000,000. People see those dollar signs and sell without thinking about replacement value. Unless you're moving somewhere with a lower cost of living and cheaper homes, it's pointless. Also, this boom isn't over and real estate has only gone down in value once ever, during the subprime lending crisis. And even then it corrected after a few years. Real estate is the best long-term investment regular people can make. My neighbor sold his house here in Friendshood for $340k, then bought a house in La Porte for $600k. This is a guy who is a cop and his wife is a nurse. Their kids are out of the house and they scaled up in square footage. People are crazy.
Yep. My wife is a realtor. She bought our house with her ex (and then took it over herself upon divorce) out of foreclosure and has a pretty small mortgage. She could easily clear $200k if we sold right now. But...the monthly payment is low. We've considered doing this but what we'd want where we'd want it would be a lot more than what we're paying right now and it wouldn't be that much of an upgrade. So, we're staying for now. It's hard to imagine when this will end. With the inventory being so ridiculously low, there would have to be a flood of houses hit the market in a short period of time. Seems like the only way for that to happen is another 2008-level recession. And no one wants or needs that.
Builders are building like crazy. What exacerbates the cost issue is that lumber is 3x where it was in 2019. Lumber futures ended 2019 around $400. Now they're $1200. I won't wax political but I will say the tariffs we saw in the last presidential administration on Canada, one of our main lumber importers, are partially to blame for this insane spike. Demand slumped in Canada due to tariffs and they shut down lumber yards. You can't spin that stuff back up overnight. Housing demands and tastes are shifting somewhat, with millennials content and even eager to live in nicer apartments and townhomes. So you can build more housing per square foot of land. Add to that boomers retiring and selling their old houses, and inventory demand should decrease, but I don't think we'll see a release to the pressure for 4+ years. There's lots of infrastructure to add when you add in new housing, so it's on the cities (government) to respond, and they respond slowly and as tax revenue grows. Again, the upside is that if you own, it's good for you. My two biggest POS rent houses which I bought 3 years ago for under $50k are both worth close to $150k now, and I've sold some and made a nice profit (it's my business model to sell within 5 years). My own home has doubled in value since I bought it in 2013.
Get a realtor to do comps in your area that include recent sales. If recent sales are pointing to that elevated a price, you may have a tough time convincing them otherwise. But be prepared to show why your property "sucks" in comparison to others in the area. The appraisal value on my home went up something like $50k last year. Ouch. The homestead cap was hit, so my assessed value was something like up $35k over 2020. No telling what I'll be facing this year in a month or two whenever I get this year's tax estimates. But similar houses around me have been selling for about $75k over the appraised value from last year. I've had the itch to move, but I'm still waiting. Home sales are starting to slow down a bit thanks to the mortgage rates rising, but also because nobody wants to sell since it may cost them a fortune to move into another home which would be just as, if not more, expensive. This results in fewer inventory out there of existing homes, so fewer are being sold, but at a higher price. I think the latest NAR data showed this. Somewhere we'll hopefully hit some kind of equilibrium and a drop in prices. I'm not smart enough to know when and where. lol. On a side note, I'm seeing a lot of people in trouble around me where they didn't account for increases in property taxes, new roofs after hail storms, stock market/crypto going down, etc. where they bought the maximum amount of house they could when they could. My only warning to others is be careful if you move -- just because you can buy it doesn't mean you can afford it.
Many of those same millennials moved away from the city to the burbs, exurbs, and rural America to get cheaper housing as well as to live wherever they want while they kept their IT jobs. In the meantime, apartments and rental SF homes rental rates have skyrocketed to the point where many are wondering why they'd want to pay that much rent instead of a mortgage and own something (again). Of course, now they have to find a property to buy as fewer existing homes are available. This is the "between a rock and a hard place" situation a lot of people are facing nowadays.
