Well, now I know the value of my house...sigh.

[dixiegrrrrl]

A house 2 doors down the street, similar to ours, same age, ( 1960),
same amenities,( 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, hardwood floors, 1900 sq feet or more, large attached double carport) plus it has partial basement with 1/2 bath, which ours does not,
same good condition,sits on the usual half acre lot, ( we have 2 acres, but all woods and gully)
was put up for sale when the owner died, in 2008.

Asking Price: 100,000.
Typical price for house like that in this area of town.

No buyer. Few lookers.
Hell, we even looked at it, thinking maybe a rental property, but we also knew where the economy was heading and preferred to keep our money available, just in case.

Price was dropped 8 months later, asking 94,000.
No buyers.
Our town was being hit by the D/Repression, real estate was not moving.
Jobs disappearing, mills closing ( we live in very rural area)
Price was dropped to 80,000..no buyers.

Fall of 2010, house is sold, for 69,000. ( it had sat for TWO years)
Yikes. Hell of a bargain for this neighborhood.

But, seller had family problems, had to leave house, late this summer.
A neighbor up the street who had some extra cash, just bought it for a rental.
for 58,000.

Tenants moved in 1st of this month.

[ret5hd]

1. A long-ago discussion with my father:

My parents bought the house i grew up in 50 yrs ago. They sold it about 10 yrs ago. I asked How much?
He said they bought it for $xxxx.
I asked how much he made at the time.
He said $xxxx.
I said so, about a year and a half of your salary. How much did you sell it for?
$xxxxx.
How much did you make at that time?
$xxxxx.
So, about a year and a half of your salary.

He kinda looked off for a second, then said "I never thought of it that way before."

[abelenkpe]

2. Crazy!

I would give anything for a house of that description. In my neighborhood they want 1.2 million for something similar. But truth be known there are two homes here that have sat unoccupied and unsellable for almost five years. I drive by them everyday on the way to my kids school. They used to be on the market asking 800,000 but have sat unoccupied for so very long.
Hope you aren't underwater or anything!

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. "underwater"...yes ...and no.

If we had to sell, probably yes. We would lose our equity, and be lucky to find a buyer right now.

But we bought the house to keep, to live in for the next 20 plus years ( assuming we live that long)
and the mortgage is much lower than comparable rents in the area for the same housing,
so I do not count that as underwater.
I have always thought of a mortgage as rent payable to the bank.

I sold another house in this town in 2002, at a loss, but it was a marvelous deduction against income at the time and saved me a bundle on taxes, there was no significant equity in that house, I had been renting it out.
All depends on how you look at it, I guess.

[Warpy]

3. I sold my dad's house in Florida after his death in 2006

for slightly more than 10% under the comps and people thought I'd completely taken leave of my senses. However, it sold fast at that price and that's what I needed it to do.

It's now priced at less than a third what I sold it for. I knew the prices there were going to drop considerably, but that has really surprised me.

If anyone is thinking of retiring in Florida, now is the time to do it.

[EC]

9. I did the same with my house when I saw what was

happening and got same reaction from friends, that I was nuts. The guy that bought it finally sold it after renting it out for several years...he sold at a loss. I knew that he would and told him so when he bought it, but of course he knew better and thought he could turn it in a week at 10% or 20% over what he paid. I thought to myself...sucker...

[mike_c]

4. good lord-- hundred year old houses, smaller (2 beds, 1 bath) in my small town neighborhood...

...are priced in the $200K-$300K range, although they don't appear to be selling any faster than in your neighborhood. But these are decidedly "working-class" homes in a small, rural town, with yards measured in square feet rather than acre fractions, LOL. And those prices have tumbled since the height of the real estate bubble.

The house I live in was appraised in the mid-1990s for $140K. Two bedrooms, one bath, well cared for. No garage. Turn-of-the-century storage, meaning not much. Twenty year old appliances, floor coverings, etc. In the mid 2000s similar homes in my neighborhood were selling in the $350K range, so prices are "down" currently, although as I said, there isn't much evidence that they're selling.

I'm in rural northern California.

edit-- Wow, I just used the Zillow link below to get an estimate of my house's appraisal value and the sale prices of other homes in the neighborhood. A neighbor's house recently sold for $280K. Mine is estimated at $276K still. It's only about 1200 sq ft, no basement, all wood construction, etc. I like it, but that's SERIOUSLY over-valued!

[elleng]

5. Sorry, dixieg.

You may know the 'cost,' but the value? PRICELESS.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. We just sold my parents' house in that range. Older than yours, needs more work, has less land.

Still, it hurt to let it go so cheap, but that's the market right now.

[Fla Dem]

7. Want to know the current value of your home ?

Try http://www.zillow.com/ plug in your address and your neighborhood comes up with current value on the houses. Scroll down to the chart where you can see up to a 10 year trend in the value.

I work in a RE office, not a realtor, office work. These values are pretty close, at least in my area to what homes are listed for. It is startling to see the sharp spike in values during 2007-2008 and what some homes are valued for now.

[Kennah]

10. I have found Zillow to be high, in good times and in bad

[golfguru]

14. You are correct, Zillow had our house at $30,000 too high

We built it for $159k in 1999, sold it this year for $209k. Zillow had it at $240k. I convinced my wife that if we wanted a quick sale, we should list it 5% below what comparable houses have sold recently. She was not happy about the cut, but now is happy it sold so fast. Others are just sitting there on the market.

I love the new condo, no more yard work ever!!

[SheilaT]

8. Another factor may well be

how good are your local public schools?

Several years ago, even before the real estate bubble burst, I heard a story or two of people who chose to buy homes in areas with the lowest property taxes, because, after all, why should they pay to educate other people's kids? Anyway, they were buying in areas with worse public school compared to a few miles away. Now, when they're trying to sell, those with kids (oddly enough) actually care how good the schools are. Result: home a lot more difficult to sell, and eventually being sold for less than Mr/Ms I-only-care-how-low-the-taxes-are expected.

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. Funny you should ask about our schools.

This neighborhood was built in the late 50's/early 60's.
Nice neighborhood, large lots, nice very solid houses, double garages, set back from the street, etc.
Quiet neighborhood, close to center of town, to grade schools.
It was originally an all white neighborhood ( we are in the south, that can't be ignored)
Most people have lived here and raised their families, are now in their 70's/80's.

By mid 1960's, on up to the 1970's, the South was forced to change, right?
This town changed by creating white flight, for those who afford it, to a new neighborhood on the outskirts of town, which became a new little town, with "private"(and, ironically,Christian) schools.

And those houses, in that new vanilla neighborhood, are priced, even today, at least twice what houses in my neighborhood are priced at, economy or no economy problems.
They sell very quickly, still.
FIRST thing my realtor tried to sell me was a house in that area of town.

The grade schools which served my part of town in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, are now mostly non-white.
I'd say, judging from the pictures of the students in the paper every week during the school year, 80% or more non-white.

There are no rules about which schools kids can go to, there is just one town school district, but the all white "private" schools can reject applicants, and can and do take applicants from any part of town, if they are...ahem.."qualified".

So here, property taxes are evenly distributed, but are are ridiculously low, and people over 65 or disabled are exempt. The low property tax rate was Alabama's way of not supporting "public" schools after integration,
everyone knew that there would be private schools for truly committed racists.
On a 100,000 home, the yearly tax is around $300.00.

On the plus side, small southern towns are very affordable for retirees, people on limited/fixed incomes,
home ownership is affordable, tho here everyone pays 9.5% taxes on food, gas, everything you buy in the town and county. And Alabama has income tax.

spelling edit.

[SheilaT]

13. Thanks for the clarification and details.

Too often, in my opinion, the decision about where to relocate to in retirement is far too often governed by "Which place has the lowest taxes" formula. It's truly sad and scary that older folks aren't willing to think about why they should keep on supporting good public schools -- or anyone, for that matter, who does not currently have children in public schools.

My two sons originally went to very good public schools, and then we made the decision to move them to an even better secular private school where we were, and never regretted it. But I found myself sometimes wildly unpopular with the other parents at that private school because I kept on saying that just because I was sending my kids to private school, did not mean I should be exempt from penny one of school taxes. And I still believe that.

What bothers me about where I currently live, Santa Fe NM, is that schools here, and all over the state, really aren't terribly good. They're okay at best, and again I see an unwillingness for citizens to understand what they really need to pay for really good public schools.

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. Whereas here, the wealthier whites DO pay out of pocket for "good " schools-

"private schools"
but they also pay their property taxes, for the public schools.
And because many of them also live in more expensive houses, their tax rate is higher.

But....anyone who is over 65, working or retired, or disabled, does not have to pay property taxes
( I supposed they can volunteer to pay them) anywhere in the state.

btw...I DO get a tax notice every year, and the assessor's office informs me that my house value is the same as it was 6 years ago!
Which is why the "asking" price of houses for sale is unrealistically high. They are based on the tax assessed value, and the tax assessed value is based on sales price before the bottom fell out of the market.
Crazy.

[trof]

18. Small correction ...

Unless your income is below a certain level (too lazy to look it up) you do pay RE taxes at age 65 and up.
At least this is true in Baldwin County.
Maybe it's different in your county.

What you CAN do is 'freeze' your taxes if
1. you're 65 or older, and
2. you've lived in your house for at least 10 years.

I froze mine 5 years ago.
I'm paying a bit north of a grand on a house the county says is worth $540,000.
I'd sell it for that in a heartbeat.
The main reason for the high value is that it comes with 165' of waterfront w/boathouse and dock.
Off the water it would be worth less than half that.

[Art_from_Ark]

20. The problem is, when you get on a fixed income,

"taxes" become a major concern. If you are retired and own your own home that you spent the last 30 years paying for, you don't want to be forced out of it just because the property taxes start to bust your budget.

[MineralMan]

15. That's happening everywhere. We're refinancing our paid for

home in Minnesota to pay off all our high interest credit card debt and get our monthly output down to a reasonable level. We bought it in 2004 for about $175K. The appraisal for the loan came in at $105K. Bummer. We're still getting the loan, but it was really disappointing. However, dumping that credit card debt for a very good interest rate is worth it. We'll pay off the new mortgage way faster than its term. Stuff sucks.

[The Green Manalishi]

16. The value of my house declined nearly $300K

From $560 to about $280.
But I've lived here since I was 8, in 1969, folks bought it for 17.5K, so I really couldn't care less; it's paid for, not going anywhere. Santa Rosa is a nice place.

2 bed 1 bath, built in the 30's, 1/10th acre.
Anybody who would even pay what Zillow now says it's worth in nuts.

[Ruby the Liberal]

19. It only takes one

My Aunt & Uncle live in a retirement community of condos. Back in 2007 when they bought (almost top of market), the units were around $200k for 2 bedroom. Last year, their widower neighbor died. His kids, not wanting to wait, put his house on the market for $105k for a "quick sale". Not a handyman special - it was the same 4 years old and not in need of repair. They got a quick sale all right, and all of the residents who were trying to sell to move into assisted living found that their homes depreciated by $10s of thousands overnight due to the comps bringing down the neighborhood average (and appraisers being beyond cautious in order to keep their contracts with the bank).

I get the need for a quick sale, and for all I know, the kids were paying the note, but it really had a huge detrimental effect on the neighbors, many of whom are beyond needing to sell and move to LT care facilities.