How does the seller distinguish those levels? Does the letter from the bank say more than ‘we’ve pre-approved Enlazi to buy a house’ if they’ve actually done the full check? When I looked into it, the only pre-approval option I could find was the ‘eh, whatever’ type, but I didn’t delve to deep since at the time buying with a mortgage wasn’t usually a problem.
But in the market where I live, they can’t. In my neighborhood, modest 3 bedroom 2-bath postwar ranches are going for half a million, and they don’t stay on the market long. I walk my dog through the neighborhood and see new signs. The next week I walk through the same neighborhood and the signs are gone and there are roll-offs in the driveway. Because all the fixer-uppers are being snatched off the market by flippers, who will then resell them for what they paid plus a lot of extra–and they will still sell them quick.
A house down the street, same plan as my house, had the original owner in it, an old guy who did zero maintenance. This house was on the market for something like $450,000 and the house was not in great shape. I figured it would be on the market awhile and then would go lower. But nope. It wasn’t on the market 10 days and now it’s getting gutted. I am quite sure the people gutting it are not a nice young couple who hope to remodel, then live there and raise their family.
Now, if they keep looking they might eventually find something, but it’s not all that easy because the flippers have lots of money and of course they will only get more.
I would have loved to be a good person and sell my house to someone deserving, but the plain fact is that I still need somewhere to live, and if I don’t want to move to the sticks (and I don’t), I have to sell it for the most I can.
Just another way the people with money have more and more and the people without have less and less.
Depends.
There are of course golf courses (the Settler’s Ghost is attached to one).
Many use it, literally, as recreational forest. Large areas of what used to be farmland are going back to privately-owned nature (plus paths).
In other cases, it is subdivided (where legally possible) into smaller lots, for cottages.
Horse-riding and ownership are big sports here. Many farms have been converted into stables, with extensive riding areas; some urbanites own their own horse; others rent them.
Examples:
What would be - objectively - wrong with putting a 5-year ownership requirement on houses? A requirement you can bypass any time you want, simply by selling for the same price you bought for or less.
So, a sudden unexpected change in your life circumstances and you’re forbidden to realize a profit on your investment? That’s crazy talk, in my opinion.
Government CAN apply taxation to empty houses and condo, and add taxation to foreign owners, both of which have been proven effective in cooling off overly hot markets. A far more reasoned approach, I think.
And let’s not pretend that flippers are doing well, in part, because most buyers DONT want any work to do. In this age everyone seems to want ‘move in ready’, especially when investing in a hot market where they are paying a steep price. Any realtor will confirm the truth of this. Flippers thrive in that environment.
Might have? What if the high bidder was a protected class? The highest bidder didn’t win because of your personal bias. Wouldn’t you be exposing yourself to a discrimination suit?
It’s best to take the best offer.
As far as I know, there are laws in Canada that require you to pay capital gains taxes on a house you sold that is not your principal residence. I think there is also a one year ownership requirement before you can sell a house and not pay capital gains taxes. These laws are aimed squarely at foreign ownership and house flippers.
Sometimes you don’t have a choice. It would be nice to make Facebook wages while paying Indiana house prices.
In your market they are jerks for no reason. In mine they are still jerks but I can at least understand the frustration.
Back when the flipping/renovation shows were fairly new, I saw an article by someone who lived in one the program had worked on. Basically anything the TV didn’t show was crap. I can believe that someone who makes more money with every shoddy workaround would do even worse.
USA too. You’re only exempt from cap gains on the sale of a house if it’s your primary residence & you’ve lived in it 2 of the past 5 years.
Up to $250K for single people, $500 K for couples.
That’s pretty hot. I live in a suburb of Columbus that is technically in the city. My house is worth about what it was in 2000. With a 30 year no money down mortgage I think I am finally not underwater, maybe break even after the expenses that would be required to prep for sale. However, that’s all down to timing. The market was down and then flat for several years. My neighbors who bought in 2014 and sold in 2018 listed for 30% over their purchase price and got $10,000 above asking. The previous owners of that home had been trying to sell it for years when they finally did in 2014. The price in 2014 was less than $3,000 higher than 2002. In the past year the longest I’ve seen a For Sale sign in my hood before it turned into Pending or Under Contract was about 8 days.
Here’s a Craigslist ad posted by a couple who want to spend between $30K and $40K on 3 acres of vacant land in the prime real estate areas on the Big Island where I have a home.
https://honolulu.craigslist.org/big/grd/d/moving-to-hawaii-want-to-buy/6581053748.html
They are about $150,000 short. There are very few 3 area lot under $200,000.
Apparently, they have been getting replies that they consider to be “rude”, but I’ll bet at least some of these replies were from people just trying to point out how unrealistic their search is.
Yet this couple continue to repost the same ad, hoping that someone is willing to give their property away for pennies on the dollar.
Well friends, sadly we are in another property bubble and it’s going to burst somewhere along the line.
Tiny 1,056 sq.ft. townhouses across the street from me (suburban Minnesota).
2016: $135,000-$140,000
2017: $150,000-$155,000
Jan 2018: One sold in 3 days for $180,000
April 2018: One sold in about a week for $200,000.
I’m seeing quad homes that went for $180-190k last year going for $225k+ in a matter of days.
No, those issues apply to employment discrimination. If I refuse to sell you my house because you’re an over-40 Mexican Catholic woman in a wheelchair, that is my inalienable right as a free American.
In general the idea that ‘speculators’ are much if any of the reason why house prices have gone up a lot in some places, lots of places not really, is highly doubtful. Just like it is when say oil prices go up, but then these same evil speculators disappear somehow when oil is going down, always puzzled me that.
But to whatever very limited extent that’s a valid concern, ‘the dream of home ownership’ already creates a significant inefficiency where people are tied down by mortgages and can’t move to where the most suitable jobs for them open up. And selling for less when leveraged with a mortgage means losing a larger proportional share of what you put down than the house price has moved down, or even having to pay out of pocket to get rid of the house. Then remembering here we’re also (pretty bizarrely IMO) criticizing people who don’t leverage up the wazoo to buy houses, it’s so ‘unfair’ when other buyers pay cash.
So in short, that’s a terrible idea.
Again the only really plausible way to lower housing prices is policies which encourage the creation of more supply, and incentivize development (of jobs that is) in all the huge areas of the country (speaking of the US but true in other countries too) where house prices are not high, nor been rising rapidly.
Laws like that would be grossly unconstitutional and anti-capitalist. It would be laughed out of Congress and the introducer relentlessly and fairly mocked.
I’ve been thinking that, too. My husband and I got out of Calgary’s hot housing market at pretty much the top of the last bubble, and have moved to a market that is much cooler (and much more stable). I don’t think I would advise young people to buy any house at this point - they’re likely to regret it in the not-too-distant future.
From this blog post by Peter Schiff (the guy who predicted the first collapse):