Anyone Sell Recently for Less than or Marginally More than you Paid?

[Anonymous]

Don't know if this counts as "recent," but we took a loss on our condo (bought in 2006, sold in 2013). It stung, but we didn't think we could make money renting it, and also, it's so unpredictable if/when we would have been able to turn a profit selling it.

Our asking price was the same as what we paid--we put several thousand into recarpeting, repainting, a mini-kitchen remodel, etc, and we knew we wouldn't be able to recoup that but were hoping to get close to breaking even. But no dice.


Like a PP we found a house that we thought was underpriced and we hope to be in it for 25-30 years, so hopefuly we'll come out ahead in the long run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you guys in dc?

In a DC, generally it's a Dickinsonian market, a tale of two cities. marginal neighborhoods with so-so schools have not recovered while desirable places for wealthy folks have far exceeded previous bubble. Exception to this is gentrifying places, but that's pretty transformative and hard to compare apples to apples.

+1 Absolutely. Houses in our neighborhood are right on the edge. Inside border for great school, but still far. Just barely getting what we paid when you add renovations. 2006.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP here with the money losing rental. We did look into short sale but it seemed you needed some kind of circumstance like losing a job or inability to make payments for the bank to work with you. Also, we can afford the payments although they are painful. Wouldnt a short sale destroy our credit? I am open to options!

Yes, will damage credit but you are pouring money into a big gamble. And considering rising income inequality, unless your neighborhood is really likely to gentrify your target buyer will be afford less and less as prices rise; wealthier buyers will gravitate to the desirable areas already recovers over boom prices.

Talk to your bank. They may let you short sale or foreclosure and the roll the difference into a small personal loan you pay off. Assuming you don't have cash to bring to table to just rip the band aid off. Assuming you own your current home and it is long term so you can ride out the 7 year ding to credit.

Right now you are throwing good money after bad and gambling on this homes area to improve markedly. Big gamble. Limit your exposure here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you guys in dc?

In a DC, generally it's a Dickinsonian market, a tale of two cities. marginal neighborhoods with so-so schools have not recovered while desirable places for wealthy folks have far exceeded previous bubble. Exception to this is gentrifying places, but that's pretty transformative and hard to compare apples to apples.

I live in a marginal neighborhood with so-so (actually terrible) schools and prices are up probably 50 percent since 2006. My own house has increased in value about 300 percent since I bought it in 2003.

[Anonymous]

This conversation is useless without naming the locations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This conversation is useless without naming the locations.

+1. I'm dying to know where these houses are located!

[Anonymous]

We are in Baltimore County. Plan to put our house on the market this year at roughly 15 percent less than we purchased it for in summer 2006 (put twenty percent down so will still walk away with cash). Houses over a million here have taken the hardest hit so we think we can make the loss up with a great purchase. Our current house is our second home; sold our first with about 75 percent profit.

[Anonymous]

I'm looking for a starter home in FFX county Alexandria, Springfield, Burke, etc. and I've seen loads of places on the market now for less than what people bought them for in 2005-2007. And other places where our realtor has let us know that the sellers have to bring money to the table because of 2nd mortgages/home equity loans. Schools here aren't marginal but they aren't completely top neighborhoods either.

I've also seen lots of places on the market now for loads more than they were bought for in 2008-2009 where the sellers have done very minimal renovations if anything, so I guess it balances out.

[Anonymous]

We're under contract now to sell the home we bought in 2007 for 20k+ less than we paid for it and all said after commission we'll walk away having lost just shy of 50k. Not to even mention that we've dumped over 100,000 into fixing it up between 3 new bathrooms, a new kitchen, new HVAC, and new windows just to mention a few things. We're in one of the areas the PP at 9:58 mentioned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is our situation as well. We ended up renting our former home but we lose money every month. We did not have the money to bring a check to the closing on that house and put a downpayment on our new house. So we are hoping prices will rise at least a little in the next few years!

Please folks don't hold onto to money losing rentals in the hopes prices will recover. Some would argue the current recovery is based on Fed stimulus. Yesterday we saw a -1% GDP, showing we still have problems beyond the Feds abilities. Another quarter like that, hello Recession. It's fine if you live there and are underwater. But pouring more money and taking risk prices could drop again? Please don't. Look at short sale please.

We did a short sale on our condo last year for this reason. We both took about an 80 point hit to our credit but luckily have no need for it right now as we are in another home, have cars, open credit cards, etc. Depending on how much you put down on a new home (we've been looking into moving out of state so have been reading up), lenders will give you another loan in 1-3 years... although there are ways around that if you had a job loss, etc. You can be eligible for an FHA loan, I believe, if you have proof of loss of income leading up to the short sale. That wasn't the case for us (rental was draining us, loss each month) but it was an extraordinarily quick process. Our realtor had a seller interested before we even listed, offer made on the first day, accepted by banks within a few weeks and closed within two months of listing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This conversation is useless without naming the locations.

+1. I'm dying to know where these houses are located!

Me 2. Especially the condo people.

[Anonymous]

FYI it's tough to make money on a condo. Realtors will tell you that condos are rarely a good investment. Everyone I know who bought a condo when they were single lost money or barely broke even when they sold it down the road.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you guys in dc?

In a DC, generally it's a Dickinsonian market, a tale of two cities. marginal neighborhoods with so-so schools have not recovered while desirable places for wealthy folks have far exceeded previous bubble. Exception to this is gentrifying places, but that's pretty transformative and hard to compare apples to apples.

I live in a marginal neighborhood with so-so (actually terrible) schools and prices are up probably 50 percent since 2006. My own house has increased in value about 300 percent since I bought it in 2003.

I'm guessing you are in DC itself? Large swaths are booming there, partly from the illusion that charters and lotteries have the capacity to absorb all the new families moving in to less desirable school districts. I fear there will be a tipping point where too many kids are vying for to few spots.

Also, you bought in 2003. You have some vague intuition of what the home was worth in 2006, but yu really don't know what you would have paid in 2005-2006. It's likely you would have had to pay far more than you think so you may not be as far above 2006 as you think.

Places which are struggling b/c of so-so schools locations: Alexandria FF, south falls church, pg county, prince william, Baltimore. Does that sound about right; they have not rebounded to bubble? But large the march of gentrification has swept further and further east in DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you guys in dc?

In a DC, generally it's a Dickinsonian market, a tale of two cities. marginal neighborhoods with so-so schools have not recovered while desirable places for wealthy folks have far exceeded previous bubble. Exception to this is gentrifying places, but that's pretty transformative and hard to compare apples to apples.

I live in a marginal neighborhood with so-so (actually terrible) schools and prices are up probably 50 percent since 2006. My own house has increased in value about 300 percent since I bought it in 2003.

I'm guessing you are in DC itself? Large swaths are booming there, partly from the illusion that charters and lotteries have the capacity to absorb all the new families moving in to less desirable school districts. I fear there will be a tipping point where too many kids are vying for to few spots.

Also, you bought in 2003. You have some vague intuition of what the home was worth in 2006, but yu really don't know what you would have paid in 2005-2006. It's likely you would have had to pay far more than you think so you may not be as far above 2006 as you think.

Places which are struggling b/c of so-so schools locations: Alexandria FF, south falls church, pg county, prince william, Baltimore. Does that sound about right; they have not rebounded to bubble? But large the march of gentrification has swept further and further east in DC.

I was the Baltimore County poster. We have excellent public schools in our area, houses here sell in a week typically. However, prices generally haven't made a comeback like DC's but are up probably 10 percent from the bottom. Schools, however, aren't the issue.

[Anonymous]

I'm a NP and I'll name location.

We sold in Del Ray in 2013. Bought in 2007. Got nearly $80k more than we paid for it and we did no renovations. And we were in the dreaded Jefferson-Houston boundary. For those that don't know, literally one of the worst performing schools in all of VA. Not NoVa or Alexandria. The entire state of VA.

Del Ray is a great, close-in, walkable neighborhood and a lot of people want to live there. Real estate is and always will be about location.