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Comment by lvl155 | Hacker News Reader

Boston is seeing some headwind especially from slowdown in biotech, the main driver of growth over the past decade or so. Rents are also down. However, worth noting supply is still constrained especially if you exclude replacement-ready homes.

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Can confirm, this is where I’ve spent four years trying to buy a starter (2BR/2BA) home in on a single income. The biggest problem in older markets is that most housing stock is of appalling quality, requiring another five to six figures of work to get into a modern, habitable shape - unless you do the work yourself, which most can’t while they also hold down a FTE gig and deal with the return of urban commuting.

It’s bad.

A lot of lower-end housing spends some years in the hands of people who can’t afford to keep up maintenance, and/or are too old to keep up with it well (… or to keep up with cleaning). As a result, it’s all but ruined by the time someone else gets a crack at it.

Yep, and a lifetime spent moving every few years (and my obsession for details and desire to understand how everything works) means that I can see the chasm between what properties are actually worth versus what folks are asking for. I’ve seen some really pricey nightmares these past several years ($650k for a 1400sqft home with knob-and-tube electrical wiring and an honest-to-god fire bucket in the basement next to the oil heater!), and I cannot afford to take such extreme risks on the most expensive purchase I’ll likely ever make in my life.

It sucks.

People get pissy about flippers but there is some scary stuff out there I don't think anyone really wants to deal with

We developed nicknames for bad flip jobs after viewing so many:

“Spray Foam Specials” - gobs of sprayfoam insulation and a fresh coat of paint.

“Gap Properties” - because who needs floorboards to actually meet?

“Skatepark Schemes” - for when the floors are so bowed you can do lip tricks at the room edges

“Flashpoint Fixers” - surface-level flip jobs that kept the knob-and-tube wiring alongside newer Romex

“Oil Derricks” - any home with an oil tank on a foundation of compacted earth or otherwise lacking a groundwater barrier

I wish I could set up a filter in Zillow that automatically excluded homes that have gray engineered flooring, which flippers seem to love for some reason.

A lot of flippers aren't dealing with scary stuff like foundations or structure, that's risky and expensive. It's cheap to throw up some new drywall and vinyl floors to make it look renovated though.

I sympathize and was in the same situation albeit a much easier market in hindsight. I came to Bay Area in 1999 and after finally facing the reality of the market after a couple of years, bit the bullet and bought something. The prices were/are so outrageous compared to my former residence in Austin the sticker shock and hyper competitive real estate market at the low end - every SFH I could comfortably afford was going to require significant amount of work to make palatable to someone who did not want the inside aesthetic of the 1950-1970s and still each had multiple bids, with cash bids above asking with no inspection always winning, I imagine this has only gotten worse at entry level with the elevation in total compensation for certain fields.

Find a run-down structure not surrounded by derelicts on land that's otherwise favorable. 1 wall remodel. A modest structure costs roughly around $250k if built by someone else, vaguely divide that in half if DIY.

Your target price range is set too low for the area if you keep seeing poor quality houses. I've heard plenty of people complain about the quality of the housing stock in my (old) area, but that's because they insist on lowballing in desirable neighborhoods, there's plenty of well-maintained properties as well including at the low end. You just can't expect a miracle for the price of a foreclosure.

yeah for some reason there seems to be a pricing disconnect on many homes, the discount on home that needs a lot of work seems to be less than the current cost to fix it (especially when taking into account labor shortages and tariffs on materials)

Yep. Recently tried to sell my 2BR/2BA in Boston. Exactly 2 people visited over 3 months and several open houses and price cuts. Realtor said it's the same across the board for 2BR/2BA because the pool of entry-level buyers dried up with layoffs.

After I switched it over to a rental listing I was able to rent it out within 3 days at a significant profit. Another unit in my building rented similarly fast at a similar price. I know it's just anecdata, but it doesn't feel like the rental market is cooling down at all.

nobody to buy at your asking price so you take the house off the market rather than match the market expectations, thereby increasing scarcity for potential buyers at a lower price who are instead forced to rent due to market dynamics

There's a floor. If you sell a home for less than your mortgage amount you have to have enough cash to make up the difference.

Also, selling for significantly under the appraised price decreases likelihood of qualified buyers because it may be a red flag.

Renting until spring is a logical option when there's no buyers, since that's when the supply of buyers is much larger. I don't want to be a landlord but I also don't want to pay money to part with my house. One home in my neighborhood finally sold for 60% of what they bought it for after 6 months on the market. I think only rich people or people who've been in their homes 20 years can afford that.

very valid! gotta make the decisions that are right for you, especially with money. it's a shame the system makes us do that.

I keep wondering if the powers that be knew that low down payment percentages and low interest rates would have a major side effect: increased purchase prices (back then) and lack of initial equity that would make it really hard to sell. I think a lot of people who bought or refinanced back then are just stuck.

It doesn't feel as dire as the subprime mortgage crisis, but maybe that's because renting out your property for at least breakeven is a lot less damaging than defaulting on a mortgage.

Yes, I hold, sell and by stock the same way. Either it is a market, or it isn't.

The expectation that housing is an investment that should perform like stock is the entire problem IMO.

stock is not housing. i need housing. i don't need stock.

This is a weird take. I get the desire to house people but someone choosing to rent rather than sell a home they own is not the crux of the issue. When there are corporations keeping swaths of housing empty to raise rent rates the real issue is market manipulation not small participants.

it's def not the crux of the issue, never said that. it's a dynamic of the market though

> When there are corporations keeping swaths of housing empty to raise rent rates the real issue is market manipulation not small participants.

curious where this is happening? would love to learn about that.

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