Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I'm guessing that OP bought in MOCO too probably somewhere in Potomac, Bethesda, or Rockville as there really are not any 1.5M houses on the eastern side and very few in the up county area. I don't think MOCO has dropped 25% in the higher end market over the past few years but it is very possible that you did pay 10%-20% more for your house than what comps are selling for more, especially if there is more inventory in your neighborhood now.
The over 1M market is very difficult in MOCO. A realtor friend told me that it is like fishing in a lake without many fish. If you are not going to drop your price substantially then you will need to wait and wait to find the right buyer -which basically means getting lucky. Sellers with houses over 1M usually have the funds to carry the house for many months and some sellers simply try to sell their house for a few years. It is not uncommon in MOCO to see a 1.5 M house be listed and delisted with price drops in the several hundred thousand range for 2 or more years. What seems to be changing is that more of these sellers just want to finally get rid of the house so they are taking offers at 200K-300K less then their initial asking price. If a few of these houses sell near you, they will drop the Redfin estimates and since they are legitimate comps they would drop your appraisal if you went to refinance.
There are other possibilities that do not necessarily mean a 25% decline in your property values. Estimates factor in price per square foot and in areas with houses ranging from 1200 sq ft to 5000 sq ft these can throw things off. If you live in an area that has smaller houses but you have a larger house, the chances are higher that your estimate will rise above what you can sell your house for on the market. If you have a smaller house and very large houses are being sold then your estimate can fall down quickly below what you could sell it for on the market. Realtors are getting really bad at lying about square footage, including unfinished basements and other shenanigans so your house may be correctly listed at 40000 sq ft while a similar sized houses is listed at 6000 square feet. If that 6K house sells for less than what you paid for it then your estimate will drop significantly because the price per square foot has gone down so much.
+1 MOCO is not economically vibrant like Virginia is. Anyone that can afford million dollar homes is either in Virginia or thinking about moving to Virginia because that’s where they work. What used to be high end MOCO like Potomac is headed down down down. MOCO is for the lower middle class only now.
The OP didn't even bring up MoCo. What are you two talking about?
And anyone who can afford a $1M house isn't middle class, they're making more than $300k to $400k. That's rich in most people's books.
Fact is that if you have a budget of $400,000 to $900,000 (middle class and upper middle class by area standards), you get much more bang for your buck in MoCo than in NoVA. You can get a SFH half a mile from DC, 1 1/2 miles from Metro and all the shopping in Bethesda and in a 8/10 school district for $899,000 in Chevy Chase. There is nothing this nice, this close to DC and Metro, for this kind of price in VA.
https://www.redfin.com/MD/Chevy-Chase/7507-Brookville-Rd-20815/home/10652733
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