[quote=kev374]…Let me ask YOU – why is the speculative sentiment that prices will keep rising now any different from 2000-2006? At that time people like you were also saying the same exact thing – that prices will keep rising ad infinitum. People like you were proved very wrong in the last bust, why should this time be any different?[/quote]
Actually, kev, when “people” were buying a painted-over-but-completely-dryrotted ~60 yo 1500 sf house with stuck sash windows, a broken wall heater and an unpermitted room addition down the street from me for $590K, I thought the market was nuts but wasn’t really paying attention at that time as to WHY it was nuts. It wasn’t until I found out from neighbors (after foreclosure of same property less than two years after its $590K purchase) that these buyers had occupations of landscaper and hotel housekeeper that I did some investigating of my own by viewing the trust deed that was foreclosed on. It was then that I realized that “creative financing” (exotic and/or usurious) was the sole driver of the unrealistic high housing prices I was seeing.
People like me are among the most pragmatic you will ever find, kev. This pragmatic nuts-and-bolts type has got a message for you. Since you (apparently) missed the excellent-RE-buying-opportunity train of the last few years (for whatever reason), you should now try to hitch a ride by crawling on the caboose at its next stop and holding on after the train leaves the station 🙂 Since you (apparently) are a day late and a dollar short, I would suggest you try to work out a deal on a OC house ASAP, condition be damned.
After closing, open up a 6-mos-0% interest account at Home Depot.
You need to make agressive offers ASAP, ESPECIALLY if you need to live in the urban OC. Unlike the SD burbs, most of these smallish cities are self-contained, extremely convenient and close to many well-paying jobs. The all-cash buyers you are seeing (sight-unseen or whatEV have likely all known this their entire lives … HELLO?). I don’t care if these ‘hoods are circa 1953 or 1961. Get over it. They’re not going to get any cheaper.
It’s different this time, kev. Why?? Because there is no comparison between the all-cash and <=80% LTV buyers of today and the zero-down-fog-a-mirror-get-a-loan(s) buyers so prevalent between 2004 and 2006. They are completely different animals. Buyers today aren't in danger of having to sell in a "down market," due to the fact that they used little or no leverage to purchase. You can't fix this. It is what it is.
OR, you can rent into oblivion and continue to lament weekly here over how much properties that interest you have recently sold for to see if anyone will lament with you.
It won't matter if you find a dozen or more Piggs here to hold your hand. The fact remains that YOU (and your family?) STILL won't have a house.
Your choice.
