Bought townhouse in MoCo inside the beltway in 2006 for $550K. Identical units were selling for low to high $500s until 2018. Now they're selling in the mid $700s. In retrospect, it fared very poorly as an investment (it took over 10 years for us to come out ahead, excluding inflation), but we do like where we live.

Anonymous wrote:Bought a federal,style row house in a gentrifying area in DC in 2005. Paid 530k. Moved out 4 years later when pregnant with second baby but didn’t sell. Rented it out and moved to the suburbs. We rented for two years and then bought a house in Reston for 580k using down payment from my mom’s life insurance policy when she died unexpectedly. Rented the rowhouse this whole time. Sold the rowhouse in December for 950k. Sold the Reston house in March for 890k. Bought our dream house in March in Vienna for 1.3 where we plan on staying for the next 20 years .

You did not answer the question

Previous owner of our house overpaid for the house in 2004. Then he encountered some financial difficulties in 2013 and placed the house on the market at less than what he paid for it. He let us know he was angry about the price which made me feel bad for him (but it was certainly not our fault). We bought a condo and in almost a decade of ownership it never appreciated enough to come out ahead in a sale. We sold it under a charitable program and the tax benefits were almost like gaining some appreciation, which surprised us. The buyer's agent asked us to consider the charitable program. This was a long time ago and that program is probably defunct.

Anonymous wrote:Bought a place in OBX for $875k around 2005. Sold it in 2013 for $525k. Huge loss. But it was an investment property so we got a big tax break. Doesn't seem fair, but that's the way it is.

Wow. That really sucks!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are currently selling a TH in Loudoun (10 mins from Reston) we bought in 2007 for $450k. Lived there til we bought a SFH nearby in 2013. Decided to rent it out since we couldn’t break even then. It’s now worth $700k but that still isn’t a great return. $250k gain over 15 years, from which we have to pay realtors, closing costs, and cap gains tax because it was a rental and not a primary. The TH neighbor a few doors down bought in 2016 for the same $450k and sold this year for the same $700k. Now THEY got a good return!

You also got rent money for years.

That's not the point, investments should appreciate

It did appreciate tho. You just bought at a terrible time.

The peak was late 1980s for Coops. There was a massive rental to coop conversion bubble from around 1985-1989.

Landlord would convert building to coop get a bank lined up to pay renovations to common elements and give inside mortgage rates to folks in building. They were non eviction conversions and prices were skyrocketing everyone wanted in.

I bought my foreclosure in late 1991 fully renovated from RTC. Sponsor and bank who made loan went bankrupt so govt selling for $27,000. Units sold for $105,000 in 1988. It fell 75 percent in value in 36 months. Today those units sell $300,000. But was not till early 2003 they reached their original 1988 prices. 15 years. But quite a swing 75 percent down and 400 percent up in 14 years.

Real estate bubbles and crashes but long term you win

Bought SFH in 2005 for $525. Still live in it and it’s now about $750 I think. We just didn’t want to move so we weathered the whole thing.

Anonymous wrote:Bought a place in OBX for $875k around 2005. Sold it in 2013 for $525k. Huge loss. But it was an investment property so we got a big tax break. Doesn't seem fair, but that's the way it is.

Ouch, if you had waited out you'd be in much better shape as demand has increased due to Airbnb and VRBO.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The folks we know who bought at the height of the market in 2006 and ended up having to sell were genx (mostly younger ones).

Lots of millennials in their early 20s got approved for stated income loans

We're eldest millennials (Jan 1981) and were the first of our peers to buy in 2010 (which turned out to be fabulous timing). There were probably a few millennials who bough sooner, but I think the housing price timing was the worst for younger GenX. They were the ones stretching for family homes in the 2004-2008 years.

I'm an 83 millennial. Bought in 2006 as did many of my peers. We were basically right out of college and the low down payment mortgages got us all in. Ended up making decent money on the property when we sold in 2010.

So you bought in a lower cost area or used your parent's money.

41, bought condo in Alexandria in 2006. From 2008 to 2018 it was still under the price I bought it for. I still rent it out today.

Got very very lucky. Bought 1999, bought again in 2002, sold the 1999 house in 2004(took cap gains except). Sold again in 2010 and bought. Sitting in the same house since 2010, due to having profits from 2 sales to roll in and then a 2020 refi, PITI is 1700/mo with 700k in equity.

Bought a condo in 2002 for 100K. Sold it in 2007 for $255. Bought a townhouse in 2007 for $365 and sold it in 2012 for $370. Bought a house in 2012 for $525 and sold it in February for $985.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The folks we know who bought at the height of the market in 2006 and ended up having to sell were genx (mostly younger ones).

Lots of millennials in their early 20s got approved for stated income loans

We're eldest millennials (Jan 1981) and were the first of our peers to buy in 2010 (which turned out to be fabulous timing). There were probably a few millennials who bough sooner, but I think the housing price timing was the worst for younger GenX. They were the ones stretching for family homes in the 2004-2008 years.

I'm an 83 millennial. Bought in 2006 as did many of my peers. We were basically right out of college and the low down payment mortgages got us all in. Ended up making decent money on the property when we sold in 2010.

We are older Gen X. We sold our starter home and bought a new build McMansion in Laurel in 2006. We were at the peak of prices. We paid $719K for the house. Section 1 of our neighborhood started selling in 1999 and Section 7 (the final section) sold out in 2009. Our neighborhood had a lot of people that bought their homes with subprime lending vehicles. Tons of interest-only, ARMs, etc. Between 2006-2009, many of the ARMs started to adjust as scheduled and many of the interest only loans came due for refinancing and those buyers had no money to put into refinancing a new loan. 445 units in our neighborhood and over 150 of them foreclosed. In 2011, due to all of the foreclosures, our house was worth about $380K. Of our original $719K which we had put $150K down, and with our payments, we had a loan of a little under $500K left. We should have been about 30% paid down and we were underwater by over $100K. But, this was our forever home and the neighborhood has slowly clawed its way back. After many people moved into the neighborhood on short sales and foreclosures, the prices increased steadily for 10 years. We were about at the break even point when the pandemic hit and now our house is worth about $780K. Only 10% over what we bought it for, but considering that it was down to about 50% 11 years ago, I'll take 110%. We are not ready to sell (this was our forever home), but I will say that I was worried for years if the neighborhood would ever claw its way back to the prices we bought at peak in 2006.