Congratulations, I believe you’ve made a wise move, and I understand what you experienced. My wife and I also went through what you went through when we sold our home, stressing during the escrow period, worrying that the buyer might ask themselves why they were buying our home for such an outrageous price, and then change their mind (we had already fallen out of escrow once, when our first buyer lost their job 1 week into escrow).
We sold in July of 2004. At the time, the market was in a frenzy. Inventory was near all time lows. We immediately had multiple offers, the first day the house went on the market, at prices that suprised us and our realtor. Everyone we knew told us we were crazy to sell our home and then rent, that we’d be priced out and never be able to afford to buy a home again.
Believe me, it was not an easy choice to make, as we were very much in the minority of people who believed that San Diego was going to see a big correction. There were no housing blogs at the time, and virtually no talk about the bubble. I found maybe one mention per week, and rarely was it in the mainstream media. But I did lots of research, especially looking at the last correction we had in San Diego in the early 90’s, and saw many similarities to this cycle. I found Prof. Pigginton’s site in October of 2004, and was relieved to find that I wasn’t the only one who thought that San Diego was headed for eventual disaster.
Did we sell at the top? Probably not, we were probably a little early, but that’s fine. Could we have waited and maybe sold the home for more? Maybe, but not much more. I have followed the market in my old neighborhood since we sold, and can tell you that I’ve seen only one other comparable home sell for more than ours did, and it only sold for about 3% more.
Even more interesting, the buyers of our home in 2004 are now trying to sell it. They put in an estimated $25,000 of improvements, and are asking about 10% more than they bought it from us for. If they sell at their asking price, after closing costs, commissions and the improvements they made, they would see no gain, and would actually take about a $15,000 loss. The home has been on the market now for about 7 weeks.
