[quote=zzz]pemeliza- yes i am one of those buyers on the sidelines that can afford to buy a home in my desired neighborhoods, but have chosen not to as i believe theres still a ways to go down. the math just doesn’t pencil out when it comes to potential rental scenarios if i needed to rent it out due to job relocation, etc. the homes on the market i can afford are just not desirable in terms of lot size, sq footage, condition, etc. i’m primarily looking in the mission hills, north park, university heights area which i think has had better staying power due to the demographics and desireability. i’d like to think better homes will come on the market as more downward pressure is put on these areas.
secondly, i have uncertainty about my earnings / career looking forward the next few years due to a number of reasons. while i could buy even if my earnings were to dip significantly and i have the safety net to pay the mortgage for a significant length of time, that is not my ideal scenario, call it being conservative, so hence i sit on the sidelines. i’m interested to see what happens this year with loans resetting and principal balances kicking in for the large swath of IO prime loans, whether jobless claims continue to rise, and whether the gov’t intervention runs out of steam.[/quote]
This is exactly our situation, though we are looking in a different area.
A funny thing I’ve noticed about the market is how sellers think that a couple hundred thousand *of the buyers’ money* shouldn’t make them hesitate to buy (yeah, I bought this house for
$200K just a few years ago, but you should have no problem paying me $800K now that we’ve had a credit bubble).
When the shoe is on the other foot, though, the sellers gasp if you offer $650K on their $800K listing (which is priced higher than the higest comps from 2005/2006) that was purchased for $200K in 2000. These idiots sit on the market for hundreds of days (often resetting the DOM by relisting it), and lower the price by $5,000 every couple of months! All of a sudden, $100K is a lot of money to them.
Just a funny observation about the buyer/seller perspectives and the very strong belief on the sellers’ part that 2005 prices were “normal” while buyers who’ve been paying attention the whole time are price anchoring to 2000/2001 prices.
