Rental condo: paid 145 in 2005 selling anywhere from 40 to 70k now

Bought in Capitol Hill for 395K in 2008, appraised at 450K this past summer for refi.

Bought for $210K in 2008. Estimates have ranged wildly from $135-190K. Don't think I really wanna know. Ahhh, the realities of being a millenial.

This is the one thing in my life I did well. Bought a fixer upper in the U ST neighborhood in 2003 for $355,000. Spent about $225,000 on renovations, doing some ourselves. RE agent appraised it at about $1.25 M about 5 years ago. Not sure what the market's been doing since.

Anonymous wrote:
I paid $440K in 2011 and it is now worth 550K.
Refinanced recently and this was the appraiser's estimate and around the same on Zillow. This is also the same price other comparable homes are going for.

This was a foreclosure.

nice job!

$549K
$650K

not unhappy

Anonymous wrote:going from 3.5-18% overnight just isn't plausible. It would completely freeze the RE market. It also didn't drop from 18-3.5% overnight. It was gradual.

I could see interest rates going up, but not so precipitously.

Oh, it is plausible and there are a number of scenarios to consider. A run on the U.S. dollar, for one, would collapse the Treasury market. T-bonds are the baseline for interest rates (including mortgages) and are sold at a discount to face value. Everyone and his (Chinese) brother selling at once collapses the price of the bonds and sends interests rates skyrocketing. This could occur over the course of a week, maybe less. Is this likely in the near term? No, but I wouldn't bet the farm that nice, slow and gradual is what we're facing here. And it wouldn't freeze the RE market, it would collapse it.

going from 3.5-18% overnight just isn't plausible. It would completely freeze the RE market. It also didn't drop from 18-3.5% overnight. It was gradual.

I could see interest rates going up, but not so precipitously.

A $600,000 30-year at 18% is north of $9,000 per month or $118,000 per year. Median gross household income is less than that even in the richest suburban counties.

Oh, my. Oh, my.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of the price increases on here do not sound sustainable... if you bought a house last year and it's already worth 100k more, how much longer is that supposed to go on? Is the house supposed to gain a million in value in 10 years? How are people just starting out going to be able to afford homes? I dunno, it just doesn't seem right to me.

I'm probably the only one in the room who remember 15%-plus mortgage interest. When the pendulum swings back in that direction (and it will) there is going to be a world of hurt in the DC market.

Nope, I'm one of the PP. My TH back in 1988 was finance at 18%......

Bought in 1999 for $450k, put in about $75k in renovations, sold in 2011 for $1 m. Bought in late 2011 for $1.45, just appraised for refi at $1.5.

We bought in DC in 1998--225k, sold in 2011 for 825k

We bought in ARL in 2011 for 1.5, now worth more than than although not exactly sure how much more...maybe 1.5,7

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bought in Bethesda in 1999 for $450,000; am comtemplating an offer from a builder for $1.250 million for the lot (Bethesda)

PP, how big is your lot and approximately where is it located? $ 1.25 M seems very generous, even for Bethesda.

Edgemoor. Approx.13,000.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They will not move rates up high until the average price exceeds the bubble high with enough cushion to sustain the price.

Actually, this is beyond cliff notes. It is gibberish. Real estate agent.

It's a fact I know for sure that rates won't be touched for at least 2 years and the entire economic policy is to inflate everything around housing back to the 2005 prices. If housing isn't sustained everything will go down as it did a few years a go, it's not rocket science.

Yea, and global factors have no bearing, it is all about the US real estate market.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They will not move rates up high until the average price exceeds the bubble high with enough cushion to sustain the price.

Actually, this is beyond cliff notes. It is gibberish. Real estate agent.

It's a fact I know for sure that rates won't be touched for at least 2 years and the entire economic policy is to inflate everything around housing back to the 2005 prices. If housing isn't sustained everything will go down as it did a few years a go, it's not rocket science.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ours is pretty bad. Bought in 2007 for 1.265 and zillow estimates it at 854 now. We are staying put. Never sure if we should pay off second mortgage which has very low interest because it adjusted down to LIBOR. Guess we will wait to see what happens with mortgage deduction

Don't fret about Zillow. It bounces all over the place. The Zillow value of our house has fluctuated over $600K this year alone.

I agree. It is very questionable. ours supposedly increased by 400 k in 2 yrs (of that 200 k in the last 2 months!?) while our neighbor's who bought the same house at the same time increased only by 40 k. zillow is truly all over the place.