Just curious about the general state of affairs. I'm getting nervous. I know some areas have retained their prices while others have massively tanked. I was hesitant about buying from the get-go but everyone (family, friends) reassured me things would be OK. I presented the worst case scenario as an example and the responses were "Well if that happened then everyone's fucked! Investing in a home is still the best thing you can do." I'm still paranoid I've bought a house that will severely depreciate in the coming few years.

We bought in July last year. Built in 2003, 1,416sqr ft 3 bed room, 2-1/2 bath, 2 car garage and a decent yard. Got the $8K incentive and a 5% rate for 30yrs. The seller got it for around 220K and we bought it from him for 220K, but Zillow lists it for 196K. Not sure how reliable Zillow is but that cant be good? Wondering if the other shoe is going to drop.

Prices are down but the county ensures that everyone's assesment is still up

Prices slightly down in suburban Knoxville, Tn. Not by a whole lot though.

We lost our cash investment in the house, but at least it isn't under water.  So, to answer your question directly, down but it could be worse.

Down but not far enough. The brick townhouse I've been waiting on is still about 20k more than what I'm prepared to pay. Been on the market for over a year, and hoping that it'll drop 10K in asking price, and I can haggle the other 10k. Looking at 180K even for a 2100 sqft. Stainless kitchen appliances, hardwood thru out, Granite counter tops, 2 Gas fireplaces, 4 bathrooms. Place is perfect for me and the GSD puppy I've reserved to get in the spring.

They're still building McMansions around here.

I drove through a new subdivision currently being put up near my current apartment to look at these new monstrosities.  The sign at the front of the subdivision: "Homes from the 390s"


So this is a new subdivision where the lowest priced home is $390,000.  

Definately down here in N FL.

They've leveled off.





A McMansion upgrade one block up for me just went on the market.  Looks like a failed get-rich project.



ETA:  Confirmed.  Zillow says it's an REO.

Down terribly in MI.

Wife and I just drove past our old house last night on the way home from a family gathering.

We bought there in 1994, sold and moved out in 2006. There was another house down the street (same cookie-cutter kind of Bungalow) for sale for what we bought our house for in 1994. I don't know what kind of activity they're getting on the house but that is awful.

They're down, but not insanely so.

The odd thing is that there really aren't so many houses on the market.  Not nearly as many as there should be.

I think the banks around here are holding off on processing their losses.

In Jacksonville: very much down.

Down a bit, but still too high. $300k for a home across the street from my Dad. It needed to be gutted for mold issues a 100k+ to fix and considered a bargain.

Prices in my town are about the same, higher in the developing areas.



I'm in a nice semi-suburban area, crime is low, businesses are popping up in town, the schools are great and we have great access to the highway. If something isn't in town its only a 15 minute drive away.



Overall I'm in a town thats desirable to move to and stay in. Things are looking up.

Same here on Long Island.

Damn near cut in half from the 2007 high.  

 

Down....No big deal for me as they were way, way overpriced anyway. When you own the home you plan on living in for the rest of your life and it's paid for you really don't want to see big increases in housing prices. That is especially true because of the taxes. I paid to have my house reaccessed to reflect the market and appealed my tax bills form the town and county. It really helped. What I saved paid for the assessment and then some.

Whatever you think, remember banks have over 1M homes on the books from last year and an another 1M from this year.  They release what they want in attempt to control the market

they're down a bit around here...not much though.

But look at it this way...eventually, the value will come back...

I notice the really expensive houses, the ones over $1m, their prices keep coming down and down but they're still up for sale in ads.  Even almost a year later, I recognize the same houses for sale but they're cheaper.



No change in the normal $300k-$400k houses.  Prices seem to be about 50% higher in the nicer, older sections of town for old houses of average size.

Kansas City has done better than most of the country but we're still down 10-15%.





My wife and I are loving looking at houses right now.





Brand new homes in subdivisions all over the city that used to sell for $170-$180K are now below $160-$150K.





We're going next week to talk to a builder and we're kinda hoping he's desperate.





Bring on the winter build discounts!

 

Prices are down, but the worst damage is in what I call the "aspirational" range. Which is the 3000+ sqft overstuffed McMansion on a 8,000 to 10,000 sqft lot. But very little property in that segment is selling.
Decently priced, small homes under $400K are selling when priced appropriately, and are "move-in-ready". Stuff in the $400K to $800K range (the "aspirational" range) is languishing. Properties over $800K are barely moving at all. But that has been the case for several years as around here, buying a $1M home has always been a risky business.
I've seen houses that sold at the peak for $950K sell for $640K once the bank had them. Unfortunately, because of the way property taxes are calculated, even this precipitous drop left the buyers with a property tax bill that was not reduced. For the previously mentioned house, the taxes were just over $1000 a month. No thank you.
One home a few blocks away from us was asking $750K, and is now asking $498K. But again, there just are not the buyers.
However, now that we have reached the point where those who have not lost their jobs, are now unlikely to lose their jobs, they can at least make their mortgage payments, and will probably wait for the market to recover before they sell, assuming they have no compelling reason to sell. That will reduce the number of buyers, but also the number of sellers, and eventually things will find balance.
Median household income in my city is about $72K. There is a thin veneer of wealth, but much of it is t he usual leased, or on credit Tahoe/Suburban/E-class/S-class types.  I believe that many of the "aspirational" crowd will spend a long time waiting to sell, especially those homes that require Jumbo financing.





In 2009, for a city of some 24,000 people, some 355 homes sold, and almost 20% of those were "distressed" (Bank owned or short sale)
Take the median household income, and because of the typical L-curve distribution, you won't find many households with an income 2x that. Here, that would be $144K. Selling a home for more than 3x that ($432K) starts to get difficult. There just are not the buyers. I know one builder who's last development was all $850K to $1.2M in this city. They took a long time to sell, and some of them have already been foreclosed and sold for under $700K. His current development is "from the low $400k's".





For the O.P. If you got a fixed rate note, and your mortgage is less
than 3x your gross income, then you'll probably be fine. The house you
live in is not an "investment". Pulling money out when it goes up in
value means selling and moving to something lesser (because house prices
tend to rise in unison) or taking on debt. Many Americans have finally
learned that debt is not wealth. Don't expect to see your house price
rocket upwards in the near future, but don't expect it to tank either.
Just expect to wait at least 3 to 5 years for the bank-owned and
distressed owners to flush out, and for some stability to apply to the
non-distressed market. Buying at 2003 prices, you're on the early end of
the bubble, but inflation eventually will take it's toll, so you're more like buying at 2001/2002 prices. Having a sub $250K home means you will have a far greater pool of available buyers, than say a $600K home, so even if you do find yourself needing to sell, your 20% down, should give you more than enough cushion if the worst comes to the worst.



Zillow uses recent comps, and if (like most cities) a large amount of property moving is bank owned, that will push the prices down far more than expected, often due to the repairs necessary to foreclosures in order to bring them back up to standard, so it does not necessarily represent what a well-maintained home will sell for.





 

I read in some housing blog that there wasn't a single home sold above 750k in all of the USA during the month of July.





 

Way down here but stabalized. The giant rash of foreclosures has severely crippled the tri county areas housing market. We lost about 40% from what we paid for our house. Sure am glad we bought when we did and not during the boom. My neighbors is underwater by what we paid for our house originally.

Stuff near me has indeed dropped, but not nearly to what the properties are truly worth. People want to re-coup some of their money that they unwisely spent on a McMansion not worth anything near what they paid for it... People seem to forget that housing is a fluid market, not a guaranteed pay-off.

They appear to have fallen but I still see some insanity with respect to any recent construction.  I mean, 1500 sqft townhomes on a 6000 sq ft lot for 250k?  We're talking about out in farmville, oregon.

Increased slightly

flat or slightly up.

Not true. Wife and I manage about 100 different real estate websites, mostly in California. I saw a few million dollar homes sell in Carmel CA over the last few months and July was a very busy month for the high end Realtors.



The funny part is.. the super high end high dollar homes seem to move like crazy, while the 400,000 and 300,000 ones sit there forever.





 

Values here are flat and they are still building new subdivisions around us.

We're off about 15% from when the market topped out in this area.

I'm hoping it has stabilized, but I still see a lot of scary things going on in this economy.

I bought a house in June of last year, 1450 square feet, built in 2000, 3 bed, 2 bath, 2 car garage on a half acre. Also got the 8k rebate and 5% for 30 years.

I paid $130k fwiw.

I'm in the Manistee area. Up until last year the prices were dropping, but at a slower rate than most areas. In the last 12 months they started dropping fast.

We just finished construction on our house (got our Certificate of Occupancy in July). We just refinanced our construction loan into a 30 year fixed and sign the papers tomorrow. The appraisal just barely made the cut off for the refinance.

My property is located in the Manistee National Forrest on a well known trout/salmon stream. I owned the 10 acres of land out right, the 38' x 56' pole barn we paid cash for and built ourselves. We cleared the land and installed our own well and septic. We contracted a builder to close in the house and do the rough in plumbing, electrical and HVAC, we finished the interior ourselves. We had to put in around $80,000 of our own money and financed another $129,000. Our appraisal for the property came in at $179,000. 3 years ago this same property would have appraised for $250,000 to $300,000. Foreclosures and short sales are driving the prices down hard now.

It looks like our builder is going to have to close up shop or relocated out of state. He can't even build a home for the prices the banks are willing to fiance and the few projects like ours that was keeping him going have just about dried up.

In my hood and empty lot, about 40X80, starts at $350,000.
I have seen some go for a cool 2 mil but they are beach front. Put a house on it and it goes way up.

WAYYYY down.  Land prices, too.



I could get land for $1-1.5k an acre around here all day long right now.

doesnt matter here, with unemployment sky high and banks not interested in loaning to anybody they could be half priced and they would still sit empty

Same in my part of N FL. Nothing is moving and there are several failed subdivisions with one or two overgrown model homes sitting there. The stuff that is moving is dirt cheap.

Near west Chicago burbs are down at least 22% from peak. Foreclosures are now starting to hit the higher end in my town-the 1.3 million and up range.

Slight increase here in the Tennesee Valley.

Market in my area has been sluggish since early 80's. Appreciation in my area is glacially slow, but that works in our favor when crap like the current situation happens. I need to get a hold of my agent and see if I can get some numbers for my area. It should be worth a few laughs.

There's really no way for anyone to know what your home/land is worth till you try and sell. I have several family and friends in the business and the inside story is simply horror. Example I live in the  country and land went for 1-2K and acre from mid 90's till 2001 then shot up to 7-10K by 06-07 now asking prices are 3-5K an acre but the actual selling prices (meaning the land that actually sells) is around $1500 an acre, this comes from the second largest seller of real estate in my area. And this is in central VA near a college town that still is very desirable but not a lot of folks rolling the dice.

Right now ignorance is bliss, if you don't need to know I wouldn't even think about it.

The area I been shopping jumped up about 7-10% in March with the additional tire kickers checking things out due to the $8K first time buyers tax credit.

About mid August I was seeing about a 15-20% drop - many are listed as short sales.  I have only seen 1 listing that was owner occupied and not "distressed". There are also lots of bank owned and HUD homes but it seems all of these have significant repair escrows. ( Certified contractor made repairs required before an occupancy permit would be issued.)

Where you located? I'm on the i-5 corridor between Everett and Bellingham.

This or more.

I live in Nevada, housing prices have tanked.

About the same here locally in my part of TX. Article in the paper the other day said on average houses are on the market about 50 days before selling and sell on average about 5% within asking price.



I sold my parents home earlier this summer in 8 days and got 3 offers. One offer below asking, one for asking, and one for above asking price. Asking price was 10% higher than they paid for it in 2008.



The people who bought the house moved from PA and it took over 2 years for them to sell their house and they wound up having to pay out almost $100k to unload the house. When they made the offer they were closing on their old house and I asked for proof that they finally closed and they sent me the entire deal and I was shocked they had to fork over that much cash at closing.

I know for a fact that's not true.

Ya know that whistling noise Wile E. Coyote makes when he falls into the Canyon?

Put a house on the market around here, and that is all you will hear.

Our old house sold for 120K 4 years ago, and we dumped it quick.

It went back on the market last spring at 80K and sits there.

1.5-4 Mil. range houses with lake/Bluff frontage are now in the 800K range.
The second/ summer home market is a joke.

S-28

Naperville?



 

Going up, but new construction seems to be off.

Down a bit out here.

But still $50,000 to $100,000 over priced.