I figure that any business calling to buy your home wants to give you a below-market offer so they can flip it for the market value. No way would I sell to a business.

That said, I know someone who (long ago) got a letter from an individual that said, "We want to buy a house in your neighborhood. Are you considering selling?" It turned out that my acquaintances had been pondering a move and hadn't told anyone. They ended up selling the house and moving.

Nah, they'll go to Short Sales long before foreclosures, especially if you're talking $750k and above.

I bought my first house in 2009. It was one of the better houses in a white trash neighborhood. Lived in it for 4-5 years then rented it out for a couple of years. Ended up selling it for almost exactly what I paid for it. But even then when you factor in what I would have spent renting for 4 years I came out ahead.

Appraisals are ordered by the financing company but pre-Zillow/Trulia/Redifin, I paid for a few appraisals out of pocket for a few properties I considering purchasing.

As for inspections, they aren't the end all, either. We hired a supposedly "great" firm to do the inspection on our home but the guy missed all kinds of stuff, including a super leaky flat roof, a balcony that leaked into our laundry room and all kinds of electrical that wasn't even close to code.

When I asked our realtor about this crap six months after purchase, he said that there's nothing the inspector could have done because they're not allowed to perform any leak detection or electrical inspections.

Fortunately, we found all of the issues early on because we basically tore it down to stud, which is probably the same plan for those that are purchasing without inspections as well.

Plus, the mortgage interest write-off is worth it on its own.

When we bought ours 20 years ago, the back of our lot was adjoined to a golf course on the right and federally protected wetlands on the left. I don't play or give a shit about golf, but it was a much better view than the backs of other homes. In fact, we paid an extra $5,000 for it in the purchase price.

Unfortunately, the golf course was poorly run and had mob ties. One day they rather foolishly saw fit to have a hooker/stripper event, which involved scantily to non-clad women wandering the course (I was at work that day and missed it). But several residents complained, and from that point on the city was up their asses like a rocket. Not long afterward the liquor license for the clubhouse was pulled, and from that point on the course deteriorated and eventually went under. I hoped that someone else would take over, but instead it was sold to developers, and now there are houses there. The only good part is the area closest to us is too low and marshy for buildings, so there aren't houses right on top of us; but still, the nice view is history and instead I see the backs of homes a couple of hundred yards distant. And of course there will be no reimbursement coming for the loss of our view from our original builders, an LLC which ceased to exist as soon as our neighborhood was completed. :grr:

Zillow has never had my current (soon to be former) house priced correctly and has fluctuated like crazy in the time Ive been in it. But since January of 2020 when it was shown at its lowest, its gone up 45% in valuation according to them. Thats about where it was actually appraised for 6 years ago though.

The house I bought at auction in August, was shown on zillow for 50% more than what I paid, but appraised at only 10% more. Zillow shows that it went way down in value when I bought it but climbed back up past its peak in the last 3 months. Im a few months away from getting it appraised again for a new loan for more improvements.

Our home was just appraised two years ago when we purchased it. They know what we paid for it, they know what the condition was because the pictures were available online for over a year. They have no goddamn excuses. But I certainly don't have my hopes up too much with values skyrocketing the way they are.

That makes a lot of sense then.

Agreed. I believe these ridiculously low rates can't last forever, but at the same time high rates would be even more devastating and lead to economic bloodshed as well. 4% seems like a good balance.

I like watching those shows on HGTV where people are shopping from homes in different cities. There'll sometimes be comments made like, "this is open space so there'll never be houses there".

I don't trust those statements. Things change all the time. Unless it's a national park, and maybe even then, it just takes a vote of a random council or committee to change things.

On that same note, it just takes a vote to eliminate our historic district around our house. I hope it'll be around for my lifetime at a minimum, but it wouldn't shock me if some powerful developer eventually screws the district over.

Sorry, I thought you were replying to my post.

Man I hope you are wrong on that. No good can come from that economically. The last time we had a huge rash of foreclosures the market tanked.

On another note why would there be a rash of foreclosures when people are getting into loans at low rates? The last crash if I remember correctly had people financing at much higher rates. It would lead me to believe that with people locking in low rates they would be more able to afford their loan long-term.

We were first time homeowners, and certainly learned some lessons from the weasels we bought from. The most important is that sellers are only interested in selling. A few things they told us about the area that were beyond their control ended up being pie in the sky. We're still here, and I'm generally happy with the house and location, but if the time ever does come to relocate I'll damned sure know what questions to ask and what answers to question.

Gonna need some deets here.

I recently caught some sellers who turned out to be pretty untrustworthy IMO.

"We cleaned the sewer line. It looks good!"

Plumber: "Yeah this is going to cost you $6k to fix." LMAO