What the heck, Austin? In the last few weeks we’ve now made two full-priced offers on houses and not gotten either one. Sigh. 🏡

@manton ☹️

@manton the market demands over asking. same in fort worth for the last few years.

@manton.org the market demands over asking. same in fort worth for the last few years.

@manton the market demands over asking. same in fort worth for the last few years.

@manton Where were these buyers when you were selling, amirite?

@manton Depends on the segment really. Many people are underwater and need to maximize return.

@manton it felt like one day there were a bunch of houses around our neighborhood kind of just languishing in eternal for-sale/price-reduced state and then overnight they were gone and i started getting a ton of targeted ads from realtors about selling on pretty much every platform.

i guess the market just needed slightly lower interest rates to tip back into a seller’s market.

@isaiah It's weird, there are still a lot of houses on the market that have been sitting for months. Seems like a house either sells in 3 days or 3 months, not much in between.

@manton in our subdivision there are maybe 150-200 houses?

they vary widely from ~1750sq ft and no yard to palatial things with 5500sq ft overlooking lake austin.

in that entire area there is literally only one house currently for sale. that’s pretty crazy.

i wonder if people are buying as pure speculative investment? these macro trends always feel mysterious.

@manton were probably right on the cusp of larger change then.

which probably means it’s a good time to buy.

assuming the interest rates keep coming down you can afford to buy early and refi in a couple years.

or

assuming that TFG reignites inflation, then this is a very good time to buy.

either way the slow but real price drop that we’ve had over the past couple years seems like it might be near rock bottom.

@isaiah That sounds right. The height was probably 2022. We sold in 2023. Definitely feels easier to buy now than a couple years ago, but not easy enough!

@manton We listed a ~1000 sq ft house in a small town and had an offer above asking price in less than 24 hours.

@manton You just have to pick the houses that nobody wants.

@manton you should check out the markets across most of Australia currently, it's pretty awful, particularly for young people trying to get into their first homes. We also don't like to live outside a major city, and our public transport is garbage in regional areas, so prices continue to rise!