Picture of my brother's condo in suburban Chicago area. 3 bedroom 2 bath, double garage, right next to a pretty pond. Cute place! 165K. What's happened to us that we now think that is REALLY cheap, a steal.
Yet it sits on the market. "I'm competing with foreclosures" he says.
This correction on housing prices is good, it means that things can get reasonable. How could we, as a country, allow all that real estate fraud go on?
A young woman I work with was able to use the 8K first time buyer incentive plus a lot interest rate to purchase a 1 bedroom condo. They are thrilled.
Three large houses have been built behind me. They've sat on the market for a long time, I'm not sure that all of them have sold even yet. My next door neighbor sniffed "No way would I pay 3/4 of a million dollars for a house in my own neighborhood!"
In the midwest, the property prices have stayed low, I don't remember what my parents house sold for before the bubble, a really nice house, 70K?
Many people still worry, they are 'upside down' on their mortgages. A real problem. I myself, look at these 'values' and 'prices' and 'markets' as just numbers, a scam really, an artifice.
Not a problem for us, our mortgage is paid off. Remember when those 15 year mortgages were in vogue? I refinanced into one and refused REFUSED to even talk about refinancing.
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