When do you think housing prices will drop (or never)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think prices are going down in my MoCo neighborhood a little bit but certainly not enough to make it feel like a good time to buy. At least for $500-$600k townhouses they are selling a bit lower than they did last year. Not dramatically so and of course it is hard to compare without going inside the properties themselves. They would be hard to afford with today's interest rates.

I think it is impossible to time the market so even though it doesn't feel like a good time to buy, it probably won't feel like that any time soon. Unless there is a massive increase in housing supply in the near future you will still have buyers for houses even at high interest rates. If you look at Redfin's summary data on the Montgomery County housing market, the number of days on the market for houses has not gone up on average. Houses are still selling faster than they did in 2019.

Honestly if you see something you want and can afford I would go for it and not try to time the market.

thats the dilemma - i may be able to “afford” it but it feels odd to be paying so much for something that seems overpriced and at such a high rate. Or are the houses not as overpriced as I’m thinking? I’m not in the area currently, just looking to move, so I don’t have a good sense of historical prices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There should be a correction back to 2020 levels. But I seriously can’t see a crash here unless there are massive layoffs.

Do you know how much prices gone up since 2020? I wasn’t in the area back then.

Probably about 15% on average.

[Anonymous]

Prices have stabilized. They will not drop in desirable areas and will remain competitive.

[Anonymous]

Supply is still far out stripped by demand. It doesn’t help that current owners bought or refinanced at the lowest interest rates in American history. That makes people hold on to properties instead of trading up or liquidating.

I refinanced $750K at 2.75% in 2021. We might leave DC, but I ain’t ever selling this property at that rate. It’s basically free money and I can find a tenant to pay off this mortgage. If we want to buy another home, we will just wait until we have another downpayment and use leverage.

I really don’t see things going, except in maybe 2nd home markets and Florida (where prices basically doubled).

[Anonymous]

spring market

[Anonymous]

I would say prices in my neighborhood have clipped back maybe 5-7% from the peak of the peak, and houses in that range are selling again quickly with little inventory hanging around. So, I'm thinking that's it - prices will stabilize from here. But we'll see. Also, we're not talking big sample sizes - either spring 22 or now. What limited inventory there was sold at a range of prices last year, and it's only by looking at the top fraction of those sales that there is even much of a decline at all.

[Anonymous]

I just got a new tax assessment in MoCo that claims my house has gone up in value by $1 million more than it was in 2017.
The market is not going down. You will see mild bumps here and there but never low enough that someone thinks it’s affordable. As long as there are all cash buyers, the interest rates have little impact on highly desirable areas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Supply is still far out stripped by demand. It doesn’t help that current owners bought or refinanced at the lowest interest rates in American history. That makes people hold on to properties instead of trading up or liquidating.

I refinanced $750K at 2.75% in 2021. We might leave DC, but I ain’t ever selling this property at that rate. It’s basically free money and I can find a tenant to pay off this mortgage. If we want to buy another home, we will just wait until we have another downpayment and use leverage.

I really don’t see things going, except in maybe 2nd home markets and Florida (where prices basically doubled).

Lol love replies like these when the reality is that prices HAVE ALREADY fallen and are projected to continue to fall all through next year at a minimum, because inventory is rising. Inventory is where supply meets demand. There are fewer houses being listed but WAY fewer buyers.

https://www.redfin.com/news/housing-market-update-homes-linger-on-market/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Supply is still far out stripped by demand. It doesn’t help that current owners bought or refinanced at the lowest interest rates in American history. That makes people hold on to properties instead of trading up or liquidating.

I refinanced $750K at 2.75% in 2021. We might leave DC, but I ain’t ever selling this property at that rate. It’s basically free money and I can find a tenant to pay off this mortgage. If we want to buy another home, we will just wait until we have another downpayment and use leverage.

I really don’t see things going, except in maybe 2nd home markets and Florida (where prices basically doubled).

Lol love replies like these when the reality is that prices HAVE ALREADY fallen and are projected to continue to fall all through next year at a minimum, because inventory is rising. Inventory is where supply meets demand. There are fewer houses being listed but WAY fewer buyers.

https://www.redfin.com/news/housing-market-update-homes-linger-on-market/

You can LOL all you want but she's right in one respect: I'm holding on to that property that has a 2.whatever interest rate, if it means I rent it, live in it, whatever.

I've been shopping the boonies for a long time and I cannot believe the high prices that just aren't budging. I hope you are right about prices falling!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just got a new tax assessment in MoCo that claims my house has gone up in value by $1 million more than it was in 2017.
The market is not going down. You will see mild bumps here and there but never low enough that someone thinks it’s affordable. As long as there are all cash buyers, the interest rates have little impact on highly desirable areas.

Haha tell me about where all those cash buyers were driving up prices from 2008 - 2019. Homes were appreciating at a steady clip, 2020-22 was an anomaly and prices will revert to the mean based on affordability, just as they always have. FOMO is gone, people aren’t dropping piles of cash on a depreciating asset. Investor demand, especially institutional investors, is DEAD. https://fortune.com/2023/01/02/housing-market-institutional-buyer-yieldstreet-awaits-bigger-home-price-correction/amp/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Prices have stabilized. They will not drop in desirable areas and will remain competitive.

I don't see how anyone can claim this. Prices have started to fall due to the Fed raising interests rates, and the Fed made it clear they're going to continue to raise interest rates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just got a new tax assessment in MoCo that claims my house has gone up in value by $1 million more than it was in 2017.
The market is not going down. You will see mild bumps here and there but never low enough that someone thinks it’s affordable. As long as there are all cash buyers, the interest rates have little impact on highly desirable areas.

Haha tell me about where all those cash buyers were driving up prices from 2008 - 2019. Homes were appreciating at a steady clip, 2020-22 was an anomaly and prices will revert to the mean based on affordability, just as they always have. FOMO is gone, people aren’t dropping piles of cash on a depreciating asset. Investor demand, especially institutional investors, is DEAD. https://fortune.com/2023/01/02/housing-market-institutional-buyer-yieldstreet-awaits-bigger-home-price-correction/amp/

+1 It's nonsensical to think that cash buyers will prop up the market. Cash buyers aren't willing to overpay just because they can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Supply is still far out stripped by demand. It doesn’t help that current owners bought or refinanced at the lowest interest rates in American history. That makes people hold on to properties instead of trading up or liquidating.

I refinanced $750K at 2.75% in 2021. We might leave DC, but I ain’t ever selling this property at that rate. It’s basically free money and I can find a tenant to pay off this mortgage. If we want to buy another home, we will just wait until we have another downpayment and use leverage.

I really don’t see things going, except in maybe 2nd home markets and Florida (where prices basically doubled).

Lol love replies like these when the reality is that prices HAVE ALREADY fallen and are projected to continue to fall all through next year at a minimum, because inventory is rising. Inventory is where supply meets demand. There are fewer houses being listed but WAY fewer buyers.

https://www.redfin.com/news/housing-market-update-homes-linger-on-market/

You can LOL all you want but she's right in one respect: I'm holding on to that property that has a 2.whatever interest rate, if it means I rent it, live in it, whatever.

I've been shopping the boonies for a long time and I cannot believe the high prices that just aren't budging. I hope you are right about prices falling!

Good for you! Keep that property, it doesn’t matter. You won’t be a seller but you also won’t be a buyer, either. It’s a wash.

As for renting, if everyone thinks like you the rental market will have a ton more supply and rent prices will go down. That’s if you can stomach potential cash flow issues, nonpayment, tenant lawsuits, cost of rental turnover, finding new renters, maintenance, income tax on rental income, etc. Been there, done that. I hope you don’t need that cash for your new down payment, either. There’s a reason most people do not rent out houses.

[Anonymous]

I think prices for “bad” houses in the DMV will go down. I.e., houses that people would not have considered but for the fact that they lost out in bidding wars to 10 houses in a row. So houses that have some flaws that were overlooked in the heat of 2020-2022. But the houses that were in high demand pre pandemic will not drop price. Because the inventory for the “good” houses will remain low and people will have to jump on them (along with 3-4 other bidders v the 8-12 there would have been in 2021) and they will pay for list or slightly over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think they are already dropping and on a steady decline for the next 18-36 months.

Agree.