Frustrated is how I’m feeling in regards to housing. I’m making a plan to purchase something – a townhouse or house – within the next 18 – 24 months and based on what’s available in my area, I’m utterly depressed. I don’t want much; a small to medium sized abode with some kind of yard. Heck, a townhouse with a cement pad and a swath of grass would make me happy. However, each time I use Zillow, Trulia, or Redfin to search for places for sale, I’m shocked by the prices (way too high) and the availability (much too low).
What is mind boggling is that I drive all over the valley running errands, especially on the weekends, and notice many vacant looking houses and structures. Most of them are overgrown with little to no window dressings making it easy to see that the place is vacant. But, when I search for houses for sale online, there’s no mention of the places I found.
So here’s my thought on what’s going on around here (granted, I’m making an assumption which could be totally false so don’t quote me on this): 1. ) Banks are holding onto an inventory of foreclosed homes and not releasing them until the housing market shows a significant improvement. 2.) Investors are snatching up the decent houses and holding onto them until the market improves.
Either way, folks like myself are stuck with a small inventory of houses that are either affordable heaps of crap in crummy areas or high-priced houses in okay areas that are priced as if the housing market never took a dump (oh, in my area houses rose 130% – 150% within 5 years, but based on the prices of some of these houses, they’ve only come down 30% at most). I just don’t get it. I’ve been completely priced out of the neighborhood I currently live in and the neighborhood I grew up in.
No wonder there’s been a mass exodus out of people my age out of this area. I might be next.
Okay, so this is a bit of a rant. I apologize.
Have you found that there are vacant houses in your area and no ‘for sale’ sign on them?
2 Comments
Hi Little House, Look for realtors working in your area of interest. Ask them to check out foreclosures and short sales. Also check out trulia. I’ve bought several foreclosures over the years and fixers, it takes a lot of leg work!!
Barbara is right that a buyer’s agent will be more helpful than a website. They get information about properties before they go on sale.
Also, the national sites, like Zillow, Realtor.com, Trulia, etc. are often unreliable. Several big brokerages have removed their listings from the sites.
You’ll find more reliable information online if you look at your the Multiple Listing Service for your local board of realtors.
And don’t forget to check out local nonprofits that might be doing real estate development. The nonprofit I work with is selling 22 town houses. If you have a comparable agency in your area, you might qualify.