2/3 of Alberta home buyers wish they had waited longer to buy their 1st home

[holden]

Originally posted by J-hop


I am always so damn confused watching shows like property virgins down in some areas of the US. A couple will come on and say "we are looking for a fully renovated house with granite counter tops, hardwood, stainless steel appliances, 2000+ sq ft, double attached garage, in a good neighborhood close to downtown with a big yard....... our budget is 150,000" and they'll find one!!!!

market is crazy in the US.

Yeah and then when you watch the Toronto versions, they have to pay $600,000 for a fixer-upper.

[jwslam]

Originally posted by holden
Yeah and then when you watch the Toronto versions, they have to pay $600,000 for a fixer-upper.

Cost to renovate seems to vary greatly dependent on the price of the house too. It seems like 20% of house value will get you from drab to glam no matter where.

Watching something like Love it or List it where they put $60k into a $350k house makes it look like a mansion and I've never seen an ROI less than 100% value added. Whereas there have been $900k houses where they put in $150k and I don't see major improvements.

[JDMsomething]

Originally posted by effingidiot


It only works when prices are going up. If the prices are stagnating or deflating re becomes a liability.

Quite the opposite, stagnating markets, or even falling markets are great opportunities to make huge $$...Did you not read the part about 3 years ago....directly after the bust?

[93VR6]

Originally posted by JDMsomething


Quite the opposite, stagnating markets, or even falling markets are great opportunities to make huge $$...Did you not read the part about 3 years ago....directly after the bust?

How do you make money on a house in a declining market?

[arian_ma]

Originally posted by 93VR6



How do you make money on a house in a declining market?

He's trying to say that when there's a declining market and everyone has lost their jobs and there is uncertainty, that's the best time for someone with cash (and here is the paradox) to buy a house because there's no where for the house prices to go from the bottom but up.

The catch is that you have to have hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash or else be willing to take on a massive mortgage in uncertain times in order to be able to make money, which is kind of a silly thing to say considering most people don't have hundreds of thousands stashed away, especially during recession times.

[nwfb]

Looking back at my townhouse purchase 2.5 years ago, I don't think waiting would have made any difference. I do regret choosing to purchase a townhouse and having to pay condo fees. I had a large down payment, the size of the place is right and budgeting costs is fine. Paid a hair over $200,000 on a foreclosure that someone paid $285,000 for in 2007, and with other units around me selling in the $240,000 to $250,000 range in worse shape than mine, it couldn't have been that bad of a decision financially.

But to first time buyers, do consider condo fees in your decision because it is something that you will have to pay every month. There are definitely benefits of owning a condo or townhouse in terms of maintenance, but looking back, buying a slightly more expensive duplex in a worser neighborhood might have been a better choice in the long run since it will be worth more later since I would own the land.

[JDMsomething]

Originally posted by arian_ma

He's trying to say that when there's a declining market and everyone has lost their jobs and there is uncertainty, that's the best time for someone with cash (and here is the paradox) to buy a house because there's no where for the house prices to go from the bottom but up.

The catch is that you have to have hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash or else be willing to take on a massive mortgage in uncertain times in order to be able to make money, which is kind of a silly thing to say considering most people don't have hundreds of thousands stashed away, especially during recession times.

Not really.....You don't need cash either, only contracts!

[bleu]

It appears that prices are going down? My bf and I have been actively searching for a house and in the past month we have seen the ones we have been interested in all decrease their asking price. One even by 100k.

Luckily we are both on permanent contracts so we are good with the job front. We both don't want to be house poor so we decided in a budget that is no where near the 40% of our monthly take home. Thankfully we are able to afford a decent house, its just finding one that we can both agree on.

My condo lease is up in a few months and we are feeling a bit crunched to find a house as we just rented out his condo for a year lease. We aren't seeing too much that both of us are interested in so we are hoping that there will be more choice in the near future.

[Sugarphreak]

...

[Type_S1]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak


It is August, the market usually gets pretty slow by the end of summer so you might be seeing a few people getting desperate to sell. A reduction of 100K is either because somebody is about to go bankrupt, or they priced it really wrong to start.

I've been watching about a dozen homes to see if they will sell or reduce price since around early April. The ones which haven't sold that I thought were fairly priced have kept the same asking, One was asking way too much and it has been reduced by 20K (still too much IMO). All of the others have either sold or been removed from MLS.

Even some of my neighbors homes I've been keeping tabs on are getting a LOT of traffic and some bites, just a matter of time before they are sold.

In general there seems to be lots of movement going on in the market, I think we are going to see a bit of a boom going into next spring.

Agree with you here. House prices seem tonbe raising if anything.

A family member owns 2 remax's and says most GOOD homes are having bidding wars over them and selling within a week. His business's have been seeing an increasing price trend over the last 6 months abnormal to the summer highs.

[redrocket]

My girlfriend and I bought our first home 7 months ago and I did so much reading into what one expert says the market will do and all the financial problems around the world it really worried me and make me doubt what I was gettin into. End result I bought anyways got 2.99% mortgage rate fixed for 4 years. And a month ago our realtor called and said the house as is how we bought for 325k in Acadia he would list for 375k and it would Be gone within the week. Now not saying that things could not Get worse and it be worth 300k in a year, no one has a crystal ball but if your in the housing market for the long run just buy when the times right in your life. If I would have done what I had initially thought and wait it out things will get worse and so on, I would no longer be looking at buying at the price range my house would now be listed for.

[Isaiah]

Originally posted by Type_S1
A family member owns 2 remax's . . . His business's have been . . .

Unrelated to your post but I'm curious about how you spelled the two nouns. Why would you write them like that in the given context? I'm genuinely curious as to why people feel that the proper way to pluralize a noun is to change it to possessive.

[msommers]

"Business's" is wrong in any regard.

[UndrgroundRider]

Originally posted by adam c


and it sucks that as a Canadian the government there has limited your availability to purchase one... if you buy one and turn around to sell it, you are only allowed to sell for the original purchase price

Source?

[94boosted]

My gf at the time (fiance now) bought a townhouse exactly two years ago. Do we have regrets..... a little. We wanted to buy something cheap as we didn't know what was going to happen with the economy so we took out a mortgage for less than half of what we were aproved for. And now we sort of out grew the townhouse (I really, really want a backyard and a driveway lol). In hindsight I wish we bought a house and spent an extra 100K or so and had something we would of been happy for 5-10 years with. Now we are sort of stuck in the townhouse for at least another year or two until prices bounce back (bought at 290K similar units are now selling for 270K-285K because the townhouse market in McKenzie Towne is over saturdated).

[pizdets17]

New home building prices just went up 6-9k this week due to winter building costs. I had two sets of people who "waited for the right time", decided that time is now, and they are out $8k from our meeting 3 weeks ago..Just an example.. Also not sure who is saying the market is slow in August, I sold 5 homes last weekend, and could have done more if lots were available.

[msommers]

Lots of "what if"s with that. I mean someone could be looking to sell and lose 8k because the market wasn't as hot as if they waited another 5 months. No one knows what's exactly going to happen and the scope of the report wasn't about when is a good time to buy. It's about being realistic and comfortable with one of the biggest purchases of your life, and realizing that too many people jump in without potentially considering all options. And sometimes the market just shits the bed but the only thing you do then is hold...and pray (sorry that's the stock market lol).

[bleu]

Originally posted by 94boosted
My gf at the time (fiance now) bought a townhouse exactly two years ago. Do we have regrets..... a little. We wanted to buy something cheap as we didn't know what was going to happen with the economy so we took out a mortgage for less than half of what we were aproved for. And now we sort of out grew the townhouse (I really, really want a backyard and a driveway lol). In hindsight I wish we bought a house and spent an extra 100K or so and had something we would of been happy for 5-10 years with. Now we are sort of stuck in the townhouse for at least another year or two until prices bounce back (bought at 290K similar units are now selling for 270K-285K because the townhouse market in McKenzie Towne is over saturdated).

Similar thing has happened to my BF. He has a condo that is not going to sell for a profit should we well now, so we decided to rent it out and use it as an investment property. We are running out my current lease at my condo while looking for a house. We need the extra space as well as we are wanting to plan for a family at the end of the year.