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Comment by irrational | Hacker News Reader

"The typical home went under contract in just 40 days, 10 days faster than April 2016. As a result, 1 in 4 homes sold above their list price."

I'm definitely seeing this in my area (Beaverton, Oregon). A house down the street sold in a few hours this past weekend for $500,000; which is $300,000 above what the owners bought it for a year ago ($200,000). They had a steady stream of people going in an out of the house the entire day.

I'm tempted to put my house on the market, but where would I move to? I love my job and don't want to move out of the area.

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There's this new game in hot real estate markets where houses are listed intentionally well below market to attract traffic and encourage multiple offers. Here in the Bay Area it's standard operating procedure, and houses are expected to sell 20-30% over asking. The 'list price' is really just an opening bid, and anyone looking for houses in these markets is adding at least 20% in their head to ballpark it's actual likely sale price. This is a big change from the past, and from many existing markets that try to list prices at the top end of where they'd appraise, and were expected to be negotiated down by a single buyer, not up by multiple buyers.

Interesting because this was the way houses were priced when my parents sold theirs in 1972. Plus ça change...

From my recent experience in Bay Area homebuying, that 20-30% depends on the neighborhood, city, property, and timing. In one case we saw it was under 10%; in another it was over 35%! (It seems to be a fairly open secret in this town that the realtor involved in that latter case _really_ likes to lowball their asking price, though.)

My advice (for the little it is worth, as I am not a professional in these things) is not to assume you know the buffer to apply if you're trying to make an offer. We used our own previous attempts and our studies of comparable sales in the area to inform our offers.

For $300,000 cash I'd be tempted to do a lot of things, including selling my home.

I'd worry about buying another one later.

Your market is red-hot BTW, so if you feel like a gamblin' man/woman...

US Tax laws basically force you to invest that $300k into a new home, or pay high gains.

Edit to add: The above statement is false.

I thought a bunch of the gains on the sale of a home was tax free if it's your primary residence and you meet other requirements?

this isn't true. 250k-500k can be tax free by meeting few requirements (living in the house >2 years).

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/capital-gains-and-your...

As if home owners don't have a sweet enough deal already?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/magazine/how-homeownershi...

Yeah, except I have 7 kids (6 still at home) and I have to worry about having somewhere for them to live, school attendance, activities/sports they are enrolled in, etc. Plus the rental market is non-existent (anything that becomes available it filled almost immediately). Maybe if I was young or an emtpy-nester...

Move to a rental in the same city?

There are practically no rentals available in the region.

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