” I’m referring to homes that are short sales, REOs, and regular sales that are close to tempting, but not low enough for buyers who intend to make their own improvements and live in the home for the duration.”
This is illuminating. CAR, it is likely that you would not have bought the house that I bought at the price I paid even though our intents are exactly the same. Me and DW basically bought the cheapest house on a great street that was original condition. We plan to do just as you suggest which is to make improvements (slowly over time!) and live in the home for the duration. I plan to be carried out in a pine box.
It occurred to me that you and I have a wildly different view of what a fair price is for a top notch location in San Diego. This got me to thinking that most buyers probably have a wildly different view of fair pricing in SD. I think all buyers myself included have a certain strike price. Right now your strike price is clearly much lower than the buyers that are currently buying right now but I don’t think those that are buying at today’s prices are necessarily less savvy. Maybe they just are not that good at timing the market so they just buy once they see something they like and can afford.
The best analogy I can come up with is the stock market. When it was in free-fall mode last year there are probably buyers that jumped in at DOW 10000 thinking wow what a deal. Then were buyers at 9000, 8000, 7000, etc. Each buyer had a price that they wanted in at. During the free-fall I got a call from a friend that thought the market was going to 3000. He never got in. Right now I would say the real estate market in SD is probably about like DOW 8000. I probably got in a little early and will probably have a 10-20% paper loss before this is all over. However, since we bought I have not seen a house come on the market that I would rather have than ours. Thus, I feel like our 2 year trek was successful even though we clearly did not time the bottom.
You and JP stuck it out and are poised to do even better then we did. Hang in there.
