The link here explains why I'm concerned about buying another home, as my wife and I sold our home of 17 years this past May, 2021, in Pelham, Alabama.
www.attomdata.com
When I bought the home in 2004, I had always been under the impression that home values "never go down". Sure, your're 401k might take a hit. Sure, you may go through jobs, and have other life events, but owning a home was the path to prosperity. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
I kept the home and stayed perfectly comfortable, raised two beautiful daughters in it through it all. We bought in 2004, lost job after job through the first half of my career. I'd get a new job, work there, change jobs. Had several short instances of actually being unemployed. My wife worked too, and we're good savers, so we always navigated choppy water. We watched our value begin to drop on tax assessments and comparable sales around us, from 2009-2013. In fact, when we paid $162K for essentially a starter home back in 2004, the house right next door sold the same amount a month later. A year later, another sold for the a thousand bucks more. I might have liked to move to a bigger home, for a family of 4, in or around 2010/2011, but I'd have to have given up my down payment, as it was lost equity at that point. Might have even had to show up to closing, as the seller, with a personal check of my own.
We move down the road to 2018, and I do attempt to sell. A long line of supposedly approved buyers made offers to me, but each time, fell through due to financing issues of their own, or some FHA/VA modification that needed to be done, at my expense, to the home. We remained in the home until we finally sold it, for $226K, in May 2021.
17 years. A gain of $64K bucks. And, if any of you know Pelham, you know it's not considered a "po-dunk" neighborhood. Quiet, relatively safe, and not the farthest commute to Birmingham, or even Tuscaloosa, if you choose.
So, I look at the chart in the link, and I see what occurred over the life of my ownership in that property. I think of the circumstances that led to 2008/2009 and that terrible recession. I also know that there is more speculation, more risk-taking, going on in 2022, in places other than just the stock market or a craps table over in Tunica. Homes are being used as financial instruments, much the same as a stock purchase. It concerns me. The volatility scares me to death, and I'm very reluctant to make a purchase, at the highest price I've ever spent for a home, though I'm well-qualified CURRENTLY to do so, here in Destin, Florida. It is my wife's and mine dream location. I can still drive up to see momma whenever I like. I can see my sister and her family. But, I return to these beautiful emerald waters, just a stones throw from the house I currently rent.
To anyone who has read all of my drivel here: thank you. And, if I may ask, please give me consolation/opinion, as to why I should or shouldn't be at great fear, of taking the dive again, on my own property.
U.S. Home Seller Profits Soar Again In 2021 As Prices Shoot To New Records
ATTOM's Year-End 2021 U.S. Home Sales Report shows that home seller profit in 2021 nationwide was up 45% from 2020 and 71% from 2019.
www.attomdata.com
When I bought the home in 2004, I had always been under the impression that home values "never go down". Sure, your're 401k might take a hit. Sure, you may go through jobs, and have other life events, but owning a home was the path to prosperity. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
I kept the home and stayed perfectly comfortable, raised two beautiful daughters in it through it all. We bought in 2004, lost job after job through the first half of my career. I'd get a new job, work there, change jobs. Had several short instances of actually being unemployed. My wife worked too, and we're good savers, so we always navigated choppy water. We watched our value begin to drop on tax assessments and comparable sales around us, from 2009-2013. In fact, when we paid $162K for essentially a starter home back in 2004, the house right next door sold the same amount a month later. A year later, another sold for the a thousand bucks more. I might have liked to move to a bigger home, for a family of 4, in or around 2010/2011, but I'd have to have given up my down payment, as it was lost equity at that point. Might have even had to show up to closing, as the seller, with a personal check of my own.
We move down the road to 2018, and I do attempt to sell. A long line of supposedly approved buyers made offers to me, but each time, fell through due to financing issues of their own, or some FHA/VA modification that needed to be done, at my expense, to the home. We remained in the home until we finally sold it, for $226K, in May 2021.
17 years. A gain of $64K bucks. And, if any of you know Pelham, you know it's not considered a "po-dunk" neighborhood. Quiet, relatively safe, and not the farthest commute to Birmingham, or even Tuscaloosa, if you choose.
So, I look at the chart in the link, and I see what occurred over the life of my ownership in that property. I think of the circumstances that led to 2008/2009 and that terrible recession. I also know that there is more speculation, more risk-taking, going on in 2022, in places other than just the stock market or a craps table over in Tunica. Homes are being used as financial instruments, much the same as a stock purchase. It concerns me. The volatility scares me to death, and I'm very reluctant to make a purchase, at the highest price I've ever spent for a home, though I'm well-qualified CURRENTLY to do so, here in Destin, Florida. It is my wife's and mine dream location. I can still drive up to see momma whenever I like. I can see my sister and her family. But, I return to these beautiful emerald waters, just a stones throw from the house I currently rent.
To anyone who has read all of my drivel here: thank you. And, if I may ask, please give me consolation/opinion, as to why I should or shouldn't be at great fear, of taking the dive again, on my own property.
