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Comment by jcadam | Hacker News Reader

The housing market is starting to feel like 2007 again. I've been trying to sell for 6 months. Prices are stagnant (or slowly falling), nobody's buying.

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Are you sure it's that and not because you've been trying to sell your house during the off-season? Most of my real-estate friends barely make any, if any, sales during fall-winter and make most sales in late spring or when kids are out of school for the summer.

Is it not late spring right now?

Late spring is late May-early June

OP said 6 months. that's a long off-season.

Yes, November 2018 - April 2019 is the prior 6 months. Not a lot of house selling going on usually. The majority of house sales are not within those months (at least in the US). A lot of it is regional (weather related) as well, but it's really mostly dictated by the school year. Most parents try to avoid moving their kids to a new school mid-year if they can help it and wait until school gets out to move.

https://www.zillow.com/sellers-guide/best-time-to-sell/

I feel like you're trying to say that house sales just stop, or come close to it, during this time. When the reality is it's more like a few % points drop in volume. If it took OP an extra week or three sell? Sure. But 6 months? Something else is wrong.

Off season is december. Now is more or less the good times.

I put this sucker on the market in the fall (bad time, I know). I got a great job offer I couldn't refuse and had to move.

Unfortunately, I have yet to "realize" my new, higher salary because I'm paying double for housing until the old place sells. It's a nice house, not too old, large, pool, etc., in a good neighborhood but it's not getting many showings.

Is it in the suburbs? All my home-buying-age friends are moving into/near the city, the definition of "good neighborhood" has shifted a bit from years past.

Have you lowered the price? A house properly priced will move in any market.

I listed it for exactly what it was listed for when I had bought it... about 7 months prior (and at that time it drew multiple offers within 2 weeks on market).

It really was an unexpected situation.

Markets can change rapidly.

> Prices are stagnant (or slowly falling)

Sounds like a normal, healthy market. Prices are not supposed to just go up. They are certainly not supposed to go up by double digit percentages points year after year.

I've seen nothing that resembles the housing crisis.

Maybe your area? I just bought a house and 3 other houses just sold in my Neighborhood. Another 2 on my street alone are coming up for sale after their kids finish school in May. One already has a buyer and sold by owner. No Zillow or any marketing.

I’m in Atlanta. What’s weird is I’ve seen about 10-15 houses Zillow bought and then upped by by $10-15k. Zillow’s been sitting longer than others but are selling with the premium they put.

It's area related, at least according to the data so far. Places with older houses, high (and increasing taxes), and undesirable weather with low or stagnant job growth are going to have a hard time selling.

Seattle is full of "older houses, high (and increasing taxes), and undesirable weather" but I guess the job prospects make up for it.

Again, not sure what I did to deserve downvotes considering Seattle is full of old and historic buildings, neighborhoods, and districts and has pretty crappy whether. The taxes aren't the worst in the country, but they are certainly not low either. Seems like the downvote feature on this site is used as a "diagree" button similar to reddit, which I don't believe is the intent. Not even sure how I managed to hurt feelings in this case, considering I was just saying Seattle sucks based on those criteria but no one is having a hard time selling as was stated

Seattle homes looks brand new compared to New England, and our taxes(MA) appear to be higher and our weather you could say is similarly bad but different if not worse. We also have a lot of jobs which pretty much drive everything.

I am curious about the tax side of things. What taxes in the Seattle area are high or increasing. I am asking because I am considering moving to the west coast.

Unfortunately nowhere worth living has many good jobs and anywhere with good jobs is an overpriced shithole (often literally, I'm looking at you SF and your poo problem).

Seattle’s tax situation is far better than the rust belt states that are looking down the barrel of old infrastructure, freezing winters (causing more expense due to salt and associated wear and tear and rusting), decreasing populations, and of course, debt in the hundreds of billions to their retirees.

Rust Belt population decline has slowed, as has growth in the Sun Belt. It appears an equilibrium of sorts is being approached.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-26/the-ru...

I didn't downvote. I am genuinely curious as it is one of the places I am considering moving and I know I don't know anywhere close to as much as I do about Boston.

I think everything is relative. If you compare housing in Boston to Seattle. Seattle looks brand new because the vast majority of houses in the Boston area were built before 1970 and there are a lot of original features you don't want in Boston houses. If you compare Austin to Seattle then Austin seems brand new because it is.

If the taxes in Washington aren't great than I am more inclined to just go to CA.

Anecdotally, I've seen a bunch of price drops in Atlanta (grant park, o4w, cabbagetown, etc areas)

Depends on the price point and locale, right? Where I'm at (a very average 500,000 person city), anything sub-$250k in a OK neighborhood is snatched up in a day. Meanwhile, anything $300k+ (unless it is in the super-cool hip neighborhood close to 3rd wave coffee and hobo poop) is just languishing.

Maybe in your area. The value of our home has been continually growing in the 3 years since I purchased it, and houses around us have been selling as soon as they hit the market

I keep expecting a housing crash here in a flyover, but it's been going strong. Know a guy who invests in houses, he is selling houses he bought for 15k for 170k, but it's a function of nice neighborhoods closing the "ghetto" pockets around the city. A ton of new construction. But I am also in the city which has the most Fortune 500 companies / pop and a cost of living nowhere near the coasts.

I checked out your profile. Are you referring to Satellite Beach as the old location? I've been researching moving to exactly that area myself, and found a lot of folks specifically complaining about lack of activity in Brevard County. Compounded by cancer risks apparently from the AF base, I read.

At least in my area of the midwest, housing still seems strong. Good luck selling your house!

My neighbor, on the other hand, had buyers beating down the door and sold his house in a week for more than the asking price. It did seem that real estate stagnated over the winter, but it's back in force now, at least where I live.

Supply and demand. Is "nobody buying", or is your asking price too high?

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