One out of fifteen homeowners in my town are trying to sell their homes

[Mike 03]

Just in the past three weeks on my dog-walking route I noticed six more homes go up for sale, so I went to the website of one of the real-estate companies placing signs around and did a search of homes for sale in my zip code. There were 947! That is just my zip code, in a town with a population of about 15,000 that has at least one and probably two other zip codes.

I'm surmising that the true figure, if you take into account the other two zip codes here, would be more like one out of eight homes being up for sale. In the months that I've been watching these homes go up, only one out of about 30 homes that I watch has actually sold, or at least taken down their sign. (I don't know if it has sold; I only know that the sign is down).

Two of the latest homes to go up for sale belong to people I know. One of them is a nurse who was already commuting three hours to get to his job and has a wife and two kids to support. I have no clue what his situation is now.

His house is empty. They're gone, and they left no clue where they were headed.

Just unbelievable.

[county worker]

1. Why are they up for sale? Is it because they have a hard time making the payments?

I've had a house for sale going on 2 years next month. Luckily I am renting it to someone and that pays the mortgage. I've lost about 200K in value over the last two years. I'd rather rent it than sell it at that rate.

[Skink]

2. How much do homes really cost?

Seems like monthly rental costs are more than mortgages.

[serrano2008]

3. Sounds like a good time for an upgrade.

Houses for sale all around, mortgage rates at 5% or so.

Go for it!