Not sure if the article said what the wife did for a living, nor if they had any kind of money from inheritance, etc. They may well not be looking for “starter” homes (not in that price range), so they have the right to be picky.
We had spent over 10 years looking at hundreds of houses, and finally found what we wanted at the right price. We have zero regrets. For you, it might not be desirable to spend a lot of time looking for a house, but for other people it is worth it, and very much so.
You also have to realize that many of the Baby Boomers didn’t have college degrees, and many of the working-class neighborhoods back then were filled with other people very much like themselves: decent, hard-working, but not wealthy or aspirational. They had simple, but fairly well-maintained homes in decent neighborhoods with fairly low crime rates. Today, many of those same neighborhoods have been taken over by gangs and people who do not have the same beliefs about maintaining their homes and neighborhoods, and are a major contributing factor to the higher crime rates.
If today’s first-time buyers are better educated and generally older as a result of putting off a home purchase because they’ve pursued their educations and have worked their way up in the corporate world, they will expect more than the 23 year-old mechanic and receptionist wife of years past. That does not make them more “entitled,” it just means that they expect to live in a home and neighborhood with other people who are similarly situated.
We have to remember that we are all different, and times have most certainly changed. There is no reason for today’s buyers to be bullied by idiotic realtors into over-paying for homes when all the cards are stacked against them by way of artificially suppressed interest rates and artificially constrained home inventories along with the deluge of “investors” competing with them because of the Federal Reserve’s dangerous attempts to prop up asset prices in the face of stagnant/declining wages.[/quote]
CAR, you can’t possibly be suggesting that this couple spend “ten years” in mom’s back bedroom while they “pick” thru a dearth of inventory in SD’s finest coastal hoods, ESP during a (lengthy?) period of rising prices? Or while they wait for the economy and the PTB to “right themselves? Or should they?? And if so, do you actually think they can continue to be “picky” and also be able to successfully consummate the purchase of a 50-85 year-old “coastal” home costing under $750K?
IMHO, in ANY RE climate, 80-100 offers by ONE buyer in ONE year just reeks of agent/broker incompetency. Even a “layman” reading this article has got to ask themselves, “What is REALLY going on here?”
CAR, you must admit you didn’t make “dozens of offers.” 80-100 offers in one year is an average of two per week. This means they weren’t likely waiting months on answers from short sales. Instead, “equity sellers” were likely turning them down flat without countering (they were likely insulted) 🙂
This doesn’t speak well of their agent/broker’s competency.
$500K to $750K IS a “starter home” in those areas …. that is, IF one can be found that has had nothing done to it and does NOT sit on a premium lot, view lot or both.
These three areas weren’t full of SS’s OR REO’s. There were “very few” of both in all of them in years past. Why?? Again, a wealth of paid off properties and very high-equity (SFR) owners abound in those areas.
How on G@d’s earth did these buyers think they could “lowball” an “equity” seller in these areas and expect someone who doesn’t HAVE to sell to give their properties away?
The point I was making is that “firefighters” or ANY similarly-situated workers of “yesteryear” (college-educated or not) wouldn’t be looking for their first house in those three areas! Not even close.
H@ll, no.
The “expectations” of the vast majority of Gen Y have run amuck. It’s going to be interesting to see where the Standing’s “lofty expectations” end up when interest rates rise while they’re sleeping on mom’s pillows. What if they had to pay 10%+ for a prime conventional mortgage …. like “boomers” did? What would this do to their “expectations?” Gen Y (as FTB’s) have been “spoiled” by the availability of cheap “artificially-lowered” mortgage money. I’ll bet this couple in the OP article is staying with “her parents” (likely age 50-60) in a neighborhood that they feel they wouldn’t be caught dead making an offer in themselves! But it was “mom and dad’s” third house (after selling twice and moving up in equity).
The ‘hoods these youngsters are hoping to buy in are “move-up” areas, typically purchased by cash buyers and third-time buyers or higher. Many successful buyers in these areas are deep-pocketed enough to do a gut/remodel immediately after closing and before moving in. In essence, in their price range, most of the value is in the lot.
Oh, btw, those VA/FHA repo lists I spoke of? They came out once weekly in the SD Union for about 14 years.
There were plenty of properties on these lists to bid on in north county at the time. Yes, even in La Costa. At that time, there wasn’t a lot of housing there (that was “legal” and above-ground, in any case). The tract(s) that WERE there were situated on what we (in RE parlance) called a “Type `A’ Flood Plain.”
Of course, the lagoon has since been dredged a few times over and shored up on one end … that is, only AFTER lawsuits were filed … and adjudicated/settled.
And those two SD ‘hoods which we bought our govm’t REO’s in? They weren’t “gang-infested” back then and are not now. One of them has TWO renowned (SDUSD) schools within it (one with a very lo-o-o-ong waiting list) 🙂
….The low inventory has left homebuyers submitting multiple bids and upbidding each other, pushing up prices and putting a damper on the idea of finding a deal on their dream property, experts say….
Pray tell, WHY is a FTB searching for a “dream home?” Methinks that is supposed to come MUCH later in life.
That statement is a very apt synopsis of the “values problem” of many of today’s FTB’s.
Certainly, our “sample $500-$750K buyers” have a right to be picky … just not in the areas they have been “shopping” in, IMO.
