Obviously things are going to be effected by recent events but we were just in the process of house hunting. I'm wondering if I should hold off as I'm worried about being upside down in a mortgage and not getting enough for my current place.

I'm as far as I know financially stable and my job isnt going anywhere so I'm not worried about making money but I think my biggest concern is not getting enough for my current house if the market falls out before it sells. Any thoughts?

I would strongly prefer to pack up and go elsewhere as our current place is starting to go downhill so staying put is a last resort for me( which I guess kinda answers my question). Currently houses are still selling strong and theres no need to wait for school or anything as they are currently out of school for this mess anyways.

*Update* So might be dumb but we found a place and are closing in a month. The market is currently still moving here though at a slower rate due to all this. I got a good interest rate and now all I have to do is sell my old place. (Yikes but here we go)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Anubismp,

I'm not expecting much re action in my area. I listed a piece of desirable commercial property at a good price over a month ago and have yet to have an inquiry.

I can tell you that selling a house right now is sssslllloooooowwww.

We had two nearly identical houses on our block go on contract with full price offerns in 4 days and 6 days, just prior to this mess. We listed our house for sale a few days later, which ended up being right before the quarantine recommendations started spreading across the country.

It's been almost 3 weeks now, and we've had 4 showings and no offers, despite being in a desirable area, in a desirable home, with a desirable price, in the fastest growing area of the country which is currently experiencing a massive housing shortage. All of a sudden, people just aren't looking as much. In fact, a large numbers of the houses for sale around us has been pulled from the market. Part of it is that most buyers and sellers are hunkering down and waiting for this virus situation to blow over because of health concerns. Another part of it is their uncertainty about the economy and the mortgage loan situation on the tail end of all this.


That said, when it comes to buying a new home, you could probably get a good deal from a desperate seller right now, thanks to the lessened number of buyers. We're not desperate to sell, but there are a number of reasons why a seller might be... And with things being so slow, you might find that some of these more desperate sellers are willing to negotiate more than usual.

The other really good thing is that interest rates right now are stupidly low. I've been offered 2.875 to 3.25 lately. So that's great when it comes to you getting a loan on the new home, and should (eventually) help increase demand to buy your current house once the health concern aspect lessens.

But I would recommend getting prequalified for mortgages from banks, not private lenders. There's talk about how some private lenders (like Quicken Loans and similar) will be hit pretty hard if this situation stretches out much further and people start defaulting on their loans, since the private lenders can't access the same federal protections and government aid that banks can. It'd suck to get a few days from closing on your new house with a private lender, only to have that private lender go tits up right when the finish line is in sight because too many of their other mortgages aren't being paid.

We've been toying with the idea of getting a house in the country with a little land. I've got my eye on a couple that are for sale...


Around here, the entry level homes (250K and under) seem to go pretty fast - the last two in our development were on the market less than 5 days. However the mid to upper level homes don't seem to be moving nearly as fast. So there may be some deals to be had along with pretty low interest rates.

Another positive aspect that I wanted to add is that Realtors are getting hungry (figuratively), now that their business has slowed down. So they will potentially be a bit more active about marketing your current home to whatever buyers still remain, and may do so for less fees that usual.

The flip side is also true of a buyer's agent. They could be willing to accept a lower percentage than usual when it comes to helping you buy your new home, with some money being better than none.


So as you can see... Overall, it's kind of a crapshoot. There are some really good things about the current situation when it comes to buying/selling a home, but there are some bad things too.

its a two edged game. yours goes down, so does the next one you want to buy. The big issue I would sweat at the moment is getting anybody to do anything.

Only, and only if, you have TLC Tons of Loose Cash and are, and can remain, debt free.

I'd list ASAP and rent for a year, I still have not fully recovered from buying at the peak of the peak during the last housing downturn.

Yeah renting would be interesting but places out here are 3k/mo for a like house.

I would try selling yours first. IF you get the offer you want at the price you want take it. If the market drops in the meantime, you're not stuck paying for 2 houses. It doesn't hurt to look at houses, get an idea of what and where you want to be......once yours closes, rent for a little while and look for the next house.

Sell now if you can and either buy something else immediately or rent short term. The market is going to stagnate at best and crash at worst and quickly. If you sell before the crash or stall and buy when the market is much lower, who cares if you use some equity in the meantime to pay inflated rent. You have a good chance to come out ahead financially and have the pick of a bottomed out market. I was in the PNW when the housing market crashed in 2008. My house lost a couple of hundred thousand in value over night and took years to recover. Do you want to potentially be stuck in a maintennce heavy home for 2 to 5 years pouring money into upkeep?

Be aware some banks are putting all deals on hold.

They are afraid of the market values post virus.

I know a few deals put on hold for this.

Appraisers for banks are going to be very busy in the coming months.

Cash is going to be king with some great deals if you can swing a cash deal.

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
I would try selling yours first. IF you get the offer you want at the price you want take it.

That's what we're doing. It's still on the market. We're not desperate to sell. If it takes 30/60/90+ days to get a full price (or close) offer, so be it. We'll keep plugging along with the status quo.

It'd be different if you were laid off and needed to sell your house because you can't make the mortgage. Or you were being transferred across the country for a new job in 30 days. Or you and the wife were in a nasty divorce and the court gave you 60 more days to sell the house before it goes to auction. Or you had already closed on a new home, and can't afford to make double payments for much longer.

Barring some major desperation driving factor like that, you have lots of time for it to sit on the market, potentially until the majority of the virus health concerns blow over.

The only annoying part is having to have the house clean and staged for an extended period, ready to show at a moment's notice for potentially months. Having half my stuff in storage is a hassle, as is spending 3x as much time per week cleaning, but it's nothing that terrible.

My house is for sale. Its on the water and worth $375,000 easy. We just put it up at the wrong time. If we had it listed even 30 days earlier, we would have sold for substantially more money. As it is right now, its just sitting and I imagine when this is all done and over, my $375,000 house sells for $275,000. Lovely.

As for rentals, I imagine those will dry up. Barely anybody is going to pay their rent. Land lords are about to get bitch slapped in the coming months. We thought about renting, but smartened up and thought otherwise. I bet when land lords realize that they are not going to get paid, they would rather take them off the market and leave them empty, then put a dead beat in that cant pay the rent.

If I wanted to move now I'd price a little below market and take any quick closing offer.
The market in 60-90 days is much more likely to be a lot lower than the same or higher.
Rates will be same or lower as the Fed will want to help any way they can for a while.

My daughter is in part of this situation now. She has to move to a new location to start her residency at the start of summer. She’ll be there for three years and has a large GSD so she’s recently started her search for a new home. Unfortunately, she can’t wait some months until all of this shakes out and home prices do whatever they’re going to do, and short term rentals are no good with the dog (a bunch of inquiries, zero acceptances), unless she leaves him with us for a while.

On the good side, interest rates are low and she’s eligible for a doctor loan with 0% down and no PMI. She’s planning to buy at no more than 75 to 80% of her prequalified amount (decent house, safe neighborhood, rather than a dream home) and will save a considerable amount versus renting, but with zero down, I’m growing increasingly concerned that housing prices may collapse and take considerable time to recover, leaving her underwater when she goes to sell. I’m hoping that the economy will come roaring back and that three years will be enough time for her to break even, but with the damage to businesses and families that we’re seeing, no one knows.

We went under contract at the end of February to purchase a house. Our closing isn't until mid June because the sellers are moving to CT and they want their kids to finish the school year here. We just received the appraisal today and it appraised for the agreed sale price.

Once we close on the new house we will list mine. I'm hoping by then most of this has blown over and things go back to normal rather quickly.

The upside here is that not a lot is hitting the market right now but I still get regular notifications for houses going under contract.

Almost is the same boat as kx90. We are in the process of buying a house. Our offer was accepted while we were out of country last month, just as the virus stuff was getting out of hand. Current house is paid off and our offer for the new house was with no contingencies regarding selling our current house of obtaining a mortgage. The new house is significantly more expensive but we can afford it by using just about all of our savings and a couple of investment funds that I sold off.

We decided to go ahead and apply for a mortgage for about half the cost of the new house just so that we aren't totally house poor and will have some liquid funds for investing or emergencies.

We close on May 1 and they rent back to the end of the month, so we plan to move in early Jun. We are working on getting our current house ready to put on the market but I am not going to rush as we have the luxury of only having the one mortgage for the new house. Debating whether to list it with a realtor right away or try it on our own for the first few weeks and see if there is any interest at all. Hopefully it will sell in a reasonable amount of time, not worried about getting absolute top dollar but don't want to take a bath on it either.

Very interesting times for sure.

KX90 and Sigfan Roy, I can only suggest that you get the house re-appraised a week before closing. Using the same appraiser, it should be a 30 minute deal for them as they already have the info and just need to pull current comps.

That is one upshot. Currently not much is on the market and things are pending quickly. With that said I've seen one or two nice places that are still up.