Shana, what did you answer when he asked?
Count me in as someone else who doesn’t care much about prices. Most people my age are working McJobs and nobody minds offering up how much they make an hour.
I wouldn’t go up to an acquaintance and ask how much their car cost, but at the same time, I don’t see the harm in asking how much a friend’s mp3 player was when I’m in the market for one.
oceans_11, very sneaky indeed! Trying to find out how much my house cost are you?? Hmm, very clever…lol.
Um, well, I tried to look unruffled and told him how much I paid for it - but like I said before, it made me cranky. You just don’t ask that question! It’s so tacky.
Must confess to being surprised at the weight of opinion on this topic. Interesting.
What proportion of houses are sold at auction in the US? Here a magority of homes would be sold under the hammer. Would this contribute to people being more open about prices?
Australia remains a nation of home owners, and we tie up a very high proportion of our private equity in real estate. I’d view being asked the question would be work out what the current market prices are, rather than to assess whether we got a good deal or not.
If/when I’m asked I first state that we bought in '94. As prices are heading for trebling since then, as a reference to what current prices are it’s irrelevent. I’m not particularly fixated on real estate by Sydney standards, even so I could probably nominate the price every house in the suburb sold since then. :eek:
I don’t know how many houses are sold at auction here, but I think the vast majority are not. A seller lists a house at a price, and a buyer offers an amount for it and the negotiations begin. When a price is agreed upon a contract is signed and the sale is made. If someone offers a greater amount than the first buyer after the contract is signed, the seller is obligated to sell to the one he holds the contract with at the agreed-upon price. This happened with a friend of mine. He made an offer on a house and the seller accepted. After the contract was signed, someone else offered the seller more money; but since the contract was already signed, my friend got the house at his (lower) price. Of course the selling price may go much higher than the asking price in a hot market when there are buyers who are outbidding each other. As long as the seller doesn’t contract to sell to a certain buyer at a certain price, anyone can offer more money.
FWIW, I’m flying up to WA today to look at houses. 
Curses! Foiled again!
Actually, I was just wondering how you responded to the question, because if it bothers you that much, wouldn’t it be better to let your friend know, so he wouldn’t make the same mistake again?
Also, if you don’t mind me asking, why did the question irk you so?
Hmm, well, I don’t think I would let my friend know because I wouldn’t want to embarass him or make a big deal out of it…I mean, it bothered me, but not to the point that I felt the need to make an issue out of it. I think it was one of those moments that makes you say “Oh…ick.” in your head. I don’t think it’s something I would call someone on though. To me that would be bad manners on my part.
He actually prefaced the question with “Well, I know this is really bad to ask, but…” which just bothered me even more. I mean, if you know it’s not the most polite thing to ask then why ask it?? Some people rush in where angels fear to tread I guess.
I think this is a US/Aus difference. We had an American at my work a couple of years ago who was affronted when business aquaintances would ask her what she had paid for her house. She did ask us (her co-workers) whether it was acceptable to ask such things here, or whether the enquirers were just rude. All in the office assured her it was OK to ask, but rude to persist in asking if an answer was refused. She was never comfortable with it though.
Here in Sydney, house prices are published weekly, except for the percentage sold by private treaty. The main Saturday paper lists houses for sale and their asking prices, plus a list of those auctioned the previous week and the auction results.
When we sold our last house, it got a small feature (what we paid, when we bought, what the sale price was, blurb, photo) in the Herald. We would have prefered not to have had that information published.
When we bought this house, we were uncomforable saying what we paid, even to close friends, and many of them were very offended that we didn’t want to say.
I often visit my City Bldg. records department, they usually have a folder on every property in the city that you can look at. It has a copy of any permits & a whole bunch of other juicy stuff you can read.