Hellobee Boards

Good luck. I struggle with this same issue all the time!

For our area, property values are rising, which is good for me as a potential seller. My house is valued at nearly $23k more than I paid for it 3.5 years ago.

They are going up. We bought a house in 2013 and sold it in 2015 for 30k more than we bought it for!

I live in a very overpriced area, and housing prices seem to be holding steady. I don't think I could sell my house for very much more than we paid for it, even though we have put about $20k into it.

A lot of this depends on where you are.

In my area, things have been pretty level for a while. I don't expect major change in the near future unless something major affects the market.

@Raindrop: I think it is really dependent on the market you're in. We own 2 houses: 1 that we bought in 2007 just past the height of the market (we thought the bubble had popped, but alas, we did not know how much further down it could go, insert sad emoji here) and 1 that we bought in 2012 in which we currently live (in a more expensive neighborhood).

We would have been underwater on our 1st mortgage if we had tried to sell, so we've been reluctant landlords since 2012. Hoping we'll be able to sell for a modest cash out in the next few years. If we were to sell now, we'd STILL get $40k less than what we paid for it, but having paid the mortgage for 8 years, we'd probably walk away with a little money.

We bought our current house for a great price and it has already increased in value by over 25% in 3 years allowing us to finance some major (and much needed) renovations.

Long story long, it is so variable by region (we're in the Chicago suburbs) and neighborhood within region. You'd have to really scour the comps in your current neighborhood and look over the historical pricing data to really know whether it's a good time in your market.

@BandDmommy: I think so too and I almost kind of hope so. My city has gone nuts and high rises are popping up that cost more for a one bedroom or studio than a mortgage for a house! It is nuts.

we just moved and bought our forever home. the price was high but we used the equity we gained from our last house to put into this new house. otherwise we wouldn't have been able to afford the new house! so we took advantage of the high prices. i would say buy the forever home now too if its feasible. its either sell low, buy low, which may not happen for quite a while so you'd waiting for the dip that may not even happen or sell high buy high, which helps get you a bigger down payment.

i hope the housing prices stay high or get higher but realistically i feel like its probably just going to level out for a couple years which is fine with us since we don't plan to move for a long long time.

My immediate area is going up like crazy- we bought our condo less than 2 years ago and the estimate has gone up almost $100K! I don't think it will keep going up like this but also won't go down, which just slow down.

Personally I feel like many neighborhoods near me are overpriced, so if you thought you would be selling in 5 years or so, it might be a bad idea to buy now. But if you are looking to stay there for 15+ years or whatever, you can weather the market changes anyway.

Ugh, I'm not sure. Our house has barely gone up in value on Zillow and the comps aren't selling for much more than what we paid nearly 3 years ago.

I think it depends on where you are, but in general I think things have slowed down a bit. Where we are at least, the growth hasn't been quite as dramatic lately as it was. My personal, not particularly informed on the topic, opinion is that things will level out for the next year or so.

@Raindrop: @tofuwad: I'm in the Silicon Valley as well. Agreed that it's nutso craziness. I'm a SAHM and it looks like we will "never" afford a house... Unless the market drops. My fil who is very wise in finances and economics is certain it will go down- j not sure when. We sure hope he's right