Currently, for a house of the same model as ours and with the same time elapsed, add an another 10% to your fifty. Buyers are loosing out 2-3 dozen times making offers, while offering $10,000-15,000 over asking with few to no contingencies.

Living in central Wisconsin and the market is OK. House sold relatively quick, but not at any sort of premium. We live in a town with one main industry (healthcare) and that tends to keep home prices fairly static. Looking at moving to an area in Dane county and the market is crazy. People are asking for 50% increase to houses purchased within the last 4-5 years. Had a brother purchase a house near Baraboo, WI and his story is closer to Dane county with an almost parabolic price increase in the last 5 years

Yes, insane. It's disheartening because we want to move...to something with more space. It all seems so overpriced, and what seemed so unreasonable last year would have been okay based on what I'm seeing this year. We'll be spending dream-house dollar amount but not getting the dream house for sure.

IF we even find anything we like enough. It's slim pickings, everyone with a good house is staying put so it seems.

Very little for sale here and it gets snapped up fast. The house across the street sold in 3 days for the full price of 2.15mil. It was a little underpriced. The house behind (40 years older) sold for full price 1.5 mil in a week. This neighborhood is considered to be "cold" sales-wise. Across our little valley a new development, 97 houses, sold out in two weeks. Cheapest house was 3.4mil!

So, yeah, insane.

When housing prices crashed in 2008, the need for housing temporarily disappeared and values went down. We still have the same population growth demands, just less housing to satisfy the demand. Housing is behind the power curve and there is a lack of supply as a result. Low supply plus high demand equals rising crazy market. This is going to be the case for a few years until supply increases to meet demand.

After leading the world with the most overheated housing market last fall, the Toronto market has fallen back to reality. February home sales dropped 35% from a year ago with overall prices down 12%.

Specific areas and housing types were hit much harder. Especially the wide swath of suburban communities just north of Toronto. For instance, in Richmond Hill, median detached home prices plunged nearly 40% from their April 2017 peaks. Similarly, in Markham, a city of 353,000, adjacent to Toronto, the median detached home price dropped year over from C$1,615,000 to C$1,185,000 this February.

Last spring, an agent came to our door practically begging for a listing. By the time we got around to it, the best offer was C$300K lower. Now that we're back on the market, we'd jump at that offer, but after 100 days of listing, the best offer we've worked with was still 3% short.

The nice thing about this sale is that our home is a teardown. And looks it--the front gutters blew down last week and I've left them hanging over the front porch. So virtually no showings!

Interesting that Toronto is coming to the other side of this boom.

joedkm182, we moved from Dane County in 2013/2014. They said everything under $250K was selling, but our house took 6 long months to sell and we had to lower the price a couple of times. Disappointing, because if we would have waited another year, it would have sold for $20K more.

My sister just bought a house. Pnw. There was very little to look at under 400k. Anything around 250k was either a total gut job or the owners were looking for multiple bids. She ended up with a very nice but modest home, 45 minutes out, for 360k. I think that is crazy.

The Colorado housing market:

Houses under $300K, that are nice/move in ready, 3bdr/2ba are almost nonexistent. I purchased a house, did a full house remodel on it, took 5 months(DH was working a full time job, running crews & couldn't get off to help me)...in just that 5 months the neighbor across the street, house was NOT as nice as mine, sold in 1 week, FULL PRICE offer for $100K more than I paid.

On the other hand.....homes in the $699K range have not gone up in the last 7 years. Homes in the $1.5million range have gone down. We went to a parade of homes in 2006. This home was listed/sold for $1, 495,000 and today it's being offered @ $958K. It's been for sale for a year! They can't get rid of it!.....while houses are going up NEW all over in the same area. Saw a spec home for $958K down the street.....so why buy used & outdated?! I guess they're NOT! As long as lots in the area are still available, you'd have to be giving it away in order to sell in THIS price range.

The San Francisco Bay Area housing market is rarely anything but red-hot. Limited availability/supply and geographic restrictions means it's usually just a question of how big the price increase is from year to year - single digit or double digit this time?

Always fascinating to read of home prices in flyover country. Another world altogether! Not to mention the building threads where every other working class family is puzzling over where to place their first home on their 40 acre parcel.

My first home was a semi on a 15'x120' lot. Oh, and in our hard-hit market, it would still fetch at least C$1.1m.

"It looks like a cheap subdivision house in a neighborhood of established 70 year old lovely houses."

This is one of those times where a neighborhood association is a good thing - the NA would have at least tried to put the kibosh on that (or, rather, they should have if one does exist in your neighborhood).

Here in a low-mid cost of living area, the higher priced homes-400K up-haven't done much in a couple years. There are ones that sold 2003-2007 that are on the market for less than they bought back then. OUCH!

But the lower entry level ones are scooped up immediately. We bought a 30 year old condo to rent out in 2013 for 60K. Similar ones are now going for $130-$150K and there's one that is "pending" on realtor.com that was listed for $175K. We've put about $10K into updates but have likely doubled our $.

Low inventory at the entry level houses in each market with relatively quick sales. At the same time things are not selling exactly at or over full asking. Even in multiple offer situations (usually 2 offers) neither will be above asking. And sometimes a house that has sat for a few months will get a flurry of activity.

So tight, very seasonal but still mildly conservative. People are taking the offers they get.

Pretty nuts around Boston. Of course it does vary a bit depending upon the individual citys appeal and proximity to Boston. In our city you can't touch an existing 3/2 house for under $625K, 45 mins north of Boston....almost NH. And that's a small one...1500sf or so...like our neighbors 2 months ago. No garage usually, small yards, and at that price it will be decent but not magazine worthy. Sells in 1 day normally over asking. New construction or flipped "gray/white" 3 bed/2+ bath/2000sf starts at $800K. My sis bought a cute 2 bedroom house in a working class neighborhood just outside of Boston last summer. In 1.5 months of looking she'd put in 3 offers and lost out in bidding wars. She was getting panicky as she'd sold her house and had to be out; upped her max twice...by $75K. Finally she was the winner. $450K for a 2 bed house; $30K over asking, day one on the market. I think her realtor called her at 6:30 am! Clean, cute 1920 small cottage but it had been "updated" with oak kitchen, 80's baths. You'll be sleeping on the street if you're holding out for anything "special" around here or don't want to do some basic remodeling. A roof, a few bedrooms, functioning plumbing? Grab it!

Of course, the entry markets are the hottest but everything seems to be selling within a reasonable time frame if it doesn't have any big negatives. The $1M++ market is a bit slower but not if it's DONE and done well.

Dont lose sight of the fact that one major thing driving this new version of a housing bubble is the RE investor - ranging from the large scale long-time professional rehabbers to the talentless small-time mom & pop Flip This House wannabes, and everything in between. Also Ive read that a LOT of what would have been entry-level single-family houses bought by first time homeowners in the past is now being snapped up by investors for rental housing - certainly seeing this a lot around Dane Co.. Lots of smaller houses that used to be owner-occupied being rented for $1-2K or more per month (Greetings fellow cheese heads!)

Not sure where its all headed . Bubbles do eventually burst after awhile....

mxk3, our subdivision is a Sixth Class city, so no HOA. Frankly, I prefer it that way. NOTHING like this has ever happened before in the nearly 34 years I've lived here! He filled the necessary building permits, but one need not have any taste and all and this flipper does not. Hopefully, the new owners may make it look better. Glad it's at the end of my street, not right across the street from me.

Pittsburgh housing market has always been a stable market. Even when the rest of the country is going through booms and busts. Yes, it will slow or accelerate on the economy but no big swings. Now the average family homes are selling well (of course depending on location), but no bidding wars like some other places in the country. It is very rare that a house sells above asking price.

Yes, the bubble will again burst...it's only a matter of time.

Yes, they always do. But, this is not a bubble in the US. It's caused by demand. We've got quite a few years before the bubble develops. The good news is if you select a good house that meets most of your needs that you can afford, you can ride out a bubble burst and never experience most of the negative side effects.

Looking at the current buying bubble comments the thought crossed my mind that the people who simply walked away from the houses that they purchased and could afford to keep before the last one burst just might be wishing they had kept the houses. There were many that simply purchased a house that was beyond their ability to pay when they lost their jobs but those are not the ones this comment is concerning.

You can go back over the past ten years of posts and find many, many, moronic posts telling us, "I told you so, real estate is not a good investment."

Nonsense.

10 years ago the big problem was that people were buying houses (or refinancing) without income proof, loans more than than the appraised value (125%). and loans that were due in 3 to 5 years. They thought they could refinance when due, but when the time came, the houses couldn't appraise.

OF COURSE the circumstances now are different than 10-15 yrs ago - no one is claiming otherwise. But the word "bubble" is still appropriate - no subprimes & unqualified buyers but lotsa wanna-be RE speculators! At least in some markets -ymmv.

From Investopedia:

A housing bubble is a run-up in housing prices fueled by demand, speculation and exuberance. Housing bubbles usually start with an increase in demand, in the face of limited supply, which takes a relatively long period of time to replenish and increase. Speculators enter the market, further driving demand. At some point, demand decreases or stagnates at the same time supply increases, resulting in a sharp drop in prices -- and the bubble bursts.

So government policies like non-recourse mortgages, taxpayer-backed Ginnie, Fannie and Freddie Mac and explicit national home-ownership boosting low-interest rate policies and non -discrimination vetting have nothing to do with speculative bubbles? Good to know! (And if it takes $700 billion in bailouts to cure, cheap at half the price!)

Worthy, of course those things had EVERYTHING to do with the bubble of early 2000s. Where did I say otherwise?! Add to your list: lax underwriting and elimination of Glass Steagal thus allowing banks to invest and actually make$$$ on defaulted loans.

But those things are not defining features of the word BUBBLE, and are not factors in the current BUBBLE.

I brought it up here only for the purpose of a well rounded discussion and so that would be buyers know what they're up against, if they dont already.

Cant say whether buyers should buy, or not buy at this moment in time. Certainly around here home ownerrship still makes sense given the exorbitant rents one would otherwise have to pay.

<<You can go back over the past ten years of posts and find many, many, moronic posts telling us, "I told you so, real estate is not a good investment."

Nonsense.>>

Just 4 years ago my spouse was arguing the same. We've moved a lot, in good times and bad in real estate. We haven't lost money yet, but never got lucky enough to make a huge profit over what we spent on a property. Still, I prefer to be an owner than a renter, especially with a family. I tell him all the time, being a landlord is a business, and renters are still paying for upkeep and taxes. Landlords aren't in the business to lose money.

The pin has definitely deflated the Toronto housing bubble. Consider this delightful fixer-upper that would have been snapped up for close to a million Loonies (as dollars are called here) last year.

Instead, the owners had to settle for a mere C$680,000 after a grueling 100 days on the market.

As the listing said, "it just needs a little tender loving care."

Just a little? lol

Wow, that’s crazy in Toronto. It looks like 800-900 sq ft small apt unit. The condition and size like that should be $60,000-70,000 here-2hrs away from Toronto in the US. :-)

My city 25 - 30 K. I love real estate terms. Lol "Up and coming neighborhood " = crime ridden neighborhood. "Cozy" = small. "Original" = old and never been updated.

OMG worthy...that interior shot says it all. Looks like they need to rehab with a bulldozer.

Now that's an architectural challenge! (Forget all the wonderful rules promulgated here for working with multi-acre "infill" lots. No room for ARG's forests.)

That would have been $35K in the newest up and coming here, about ten years ago. Now it would be $350K. The lot would be $100K

ok so as we closed on the condo for my MIL-I can say that in order to secure us getting it, we approached the agent shortly before it came up officially on the market (we watched the community very closely), went for dual agency-I didn't quite like that idea, but my DH thought it's good, in this case; and payed full price. Which was 300K for one bedroom, 780 sq f. The community is old for the area(late sixties), redone from former apartments, rather mm..non-descript..and there's nothing special about it except for its very central location and being very close to us, shopping, and nature trail park that my MIL loves. It does have mature vegetation that always helps:) And the condo itself has some semblance of privacy/view. The condo was nicely sensibly remodeled before resale, which doesn't usually happen from my experience unless people do it for their own enjoyment..I mean people renovate before resale, I'd just rather most of them wouldn't because it's horribly cutting corners, and often looks like my life just worse.

They have laundromats in this cutting-edge community of theirs, but the seller went lengths and installed a washer and dryer inside. So this was a big plus too.

So yes, something like this will be gone in a day, get multiple bids, etc.

From what I saw I think starter homes are very hot market here(OC, CA). The higher one goes the stabler it gets. Some properties will always be very hot due to a neighborhood, view, some features, etc. Prices are on the rise in general.

I noticed that in some of the house listings floor size ( added on unheated basement, attic sq ft) and heated living sq ft were both mentioned. Is floor size the new thing in listings?

Sharp eye!

For at least 20 years, it's a favourite real estate agent's work around the rules. By contrast, Ontario new home builders are strictly regulated and will be legally liable if the homeowner finds a size deficit after taking possession.

handmethathammer, I don't know which part of WI you're in, but I'm in the Fox Valley. We recently had to sell our home and many people had told us what a hot market it was. We took it with a grain of salt, since our home was a starter home and definitely nothing exceptional. The listing went live on a Wednesday, but we didn't allow showings until that Friday. We left town for the entire weekend so the agents could show it as much as they wanted during that first weekend. Between Friday afternoon and Sunday afternoon, we had 24 showings, and got presented with 5 offers (only 1 was below asking, all the rest were over). And, yes, one of the couples did write us a letter. I was blown away. From listing to inspection was 1 week. We were thrilled!

In Jan we sold our house before it was even listed! A friend of a friend knew we were planning to sell it in the spring and they begged to come over and see it. Made us an offer within an hour and we accepted it.

It rushed us to get out and into the house we had bought and were remodeling. But I'm still thankful we never had to list it and we didn't pay any realtor fees.

It seems there are levels here. Townhouses go fast -- our neighbor sold in 4 days. Single family homes go in price tiers -- the more affordable ones get snapped up quickly; more costly ones take longer. Condos are slower but seem less dependent on selling season.

In Minneapolis/St. Paul metro, lower priced home sales are crazy - especially around $300K. Higher priced ones can be on the market a long time - things over $1M. Things in the $400K-$600K can sell quickly if priced right. I see quite a few listings that linger for a long time as someone thinks they are worth far more than they are - especially those with very dated interiors. We sold our house a couple years ago in about three weeks. There are still some for sale on our street or nearby that were for sale when we listed ours. In that particular area houses in the mid-price range that are priced correctly now sell within days, sometimes above list.

Some of the costs of the collapsing housing bubble in the Toronto area have now been quantified: an average of C$157,000 for each of the 866 homes that were "sold" but didn't close in 2017 and then were relisted by the same owners and sold this year.

Photo: Toronto Sun

And for some of the "buyers" who walked away from closings last year, the total can be much higher. Like the couple who "won" a bidding war for a C$2 million home by bidding C$2.225 million. Then as market values dropped, financing became unavailable. The seller "mitigated" damages by selling into the new market, sued the defaulting "buyers" for the shortfall and recently won a judgment for C$470,000

Kate, If you are working from home, why don't you buy a home in the US near Canada for a much cheaper price? This home is over looking Canada just cross the Niagara River. :-).

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4714-Lower-River-Rd-Lewiston-NY-14092/60194564_zpid/

Kate Barrington I hope that you have noticed all the previous posts were from 2018 and selling conditions may have changed since then.

Save your energy, it was just spam.