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Columbus is an extremely affordable market nationally. It isn't at any kind of an extreme, in terms of median home prices vs. household incomes or median home prices vs. rents. But it also hasn't gone into the kind of downward spiral that the Rust Belt portions of the state have.
Probably not for the forever house plus, Cbus is probably not our forever location. I do have enough for a small house and we are casually looking at some forecloses, short sales, fixer uppers that we may venture into and try to do what we did with this one again - sweat equity.
I strongly urge you not to make decisions off of Zillow. People are now suing Zillow because their estimates are so far off in most areas. A local, large property management company should be able to give you the rents for any house or area. GLI checked Zillow for my house.
The city and zip code for the area have a steady slow climb up. My particular chart actually had a spike up about two years ago and then has been basically flat.
The rent number keeps moving up though- which I like because most likely when we are ready to move, I will keep this house and rent it out. With a 3.25% 30 year fixed, it is something to take advantage of. If I could get what the Zillow rent is- then it is enough to pay PITI and have $1K a month in cash flow. For the first year, I would take the extra cash flow and put it in an account to cover repairs and any missing rent months. After that, prob put $100-500 in the account to keep it nice and ready and use the extra for whatever else.
Oh, I know Zillow is for crap on estimates. I have been in banking and lending for a long time and had to have way too many conversations with people about estimates and Zillow etc. To be fair, I really don't know how good Zillow is on rent estimates but from the value estimates, I would never trust it and make big decisions. We are no where near making any move right now so it is more about just seeing what is says and if I get serious about things I would do much more due diligence about a whole lot of things. From what I know, the rent does sound to be in the right neighborhood. Value estimate? No, not so much. It was about $15K low when we purchased back in 2012. I have not looked at comps much but there should be no real reason why the surrounding area has been on an increase while my property is flat.
80% of my biz is first timers. I'm seeing a lot of 20-30 year old couples with young families. Also seeing many that were crushed ten years ago finally getting back on their feet with their incomes and credit scores. I have an incredible amount of leads of FB with people less than 50 points from being approved. The boomers are also trading down as they become empty nesters.
My post a couple pages back:
Prices are going up because of an inventory problem, not because there are so many buyers.
I'm ~90 minutes outside of Toronto and they've gone crazy here too. Average price has increased from under 300k to over 400k in less than a year.
Meeting I was in earlier this week threw out a number that was 75M millennial's between the ages of 20 and 36, about 15% more than the entirety of Gen X and about equal to Boomers. It had the next generation (some dumb marketing group has coined it the "Edge" generation) estimated at 74M.dgreen said:
I guess it depends on how many years are counted in a particular generation. Using the above 2015 data, age 20-36 would have been 18-34, which does sum to 75m. That's 17 years worth of ages. If we then look at ages 1-17 above to have an equal number of years, it's 70m with a downward trend. We aren't having enough babies and I've heard some predicting a depression in the early 2030s with these demographics being part of the reason.
Long term economic growth potential is a function of the rate of growth of the workforce (demographics) and the rate of growth in worker efficiency. That latter has been low over the past 15%, after growing rapidly the previous fifty.
They're going to have a hard time equating Zestimates and appraisals.
This seems like an awfully frivolous lawsuit. Who the heck can say with a straight face that they materially rely on Zillow's estimates? And if you do, you're a goober and get what you have coming to you.
An incredible amount of people do. It boggles the mind. It's like when people thought AOL was the internet.
The big argument seems to be perception and making the Zestimate public info. There was a quote saying buyers telling sellers that Zillow says this and that is how much they are willing to pay.
According to National Association of Realtors data on existing home sales1, the Midwest is the only region that is seeing sales volume down vs. last year. In the Midwest, May was also down from April, which is unusual.Houses in my neighborhood we selling almost immediately 6 months ago. Realized on my walk this morning that there are 6 houses that I pass every day that have had for sale signs in the yard for 2-3 months now.
Then by coincidence I get my Zillow estimated today and (FWIW) the value of my house declined by almost 5% since the last report. I hope the tax man is paying attention.
Also heard this morning that new housing starts are down for 3 months in a row now.
Uffffff. Stock Market to follow?Houses in my neighborhood we selling almost immediately 6 months ago. Realized on my walk this morning that there are 6 houses that I pass every day that have had for sale signs in the yard for 2-3 months now.
Then by coincidence I get my Zillow estimated today and (FWIW) the value of my house declined by almost 5% since the last report. I hope the tax man is paying attention.
Also heard this morning that new housing starts are down for 3 months in a row now.
The rate of growth in mortgage applications for purchases is actually trending up again, after having been in a slowing trend for the better part of a year. That was slowing from a remarkably high and unsustainable rate, though. And the recent re-acceleration has only been in evidence for about six weeks.
Low inventories definitely make interpreting the data challenging.
It has been a helluva bull run though.
The data I quoted was from the sales index, not the pending index. I suppose both could be accurate.
Oh for sure. I was probably too conservative on my allocations to take advantage though. During that run, the currency fluctuations didn't help me either with the GBP and EUR dropping vs. a strong USD.The pending home sales being down 3 straight months was on CNBC. Not sure where they get those numbers.
Rates on a 30 year mortgage are tied to the market prices of the 10 year US treasury bond (not to the rates set by the fed).
Let me restate the question; if the Fed is attempting to normalize interest rates with hikes, can anyone share some insight into what may be causing the yield on the 10 year to remain flat or even decline despite increasing short term rates? Increased supply? F/X rates? The end of QE? Lower forecasts for inflation or unemployment?
The fixed income market is sending pretty clear signals that the economy is slowing. Those signals include, falling 10 yr rates, a flattening yield curve, and lower inflation expectations (as measured by the spread between normal T-bonds and Inflation Protected bonds).
Thanks I appreciate the insight and it kind of jives with what I was thinking as well. 8 years is pretty long for an expansion.
3 days, up to 4 offers with the highest at $205K. We have an open house tomorrow so we'll see if any more come in.
