Re: If you bought your house in the height of the market, do you worry about when housing prices will go back up?

No, it stinks but we don't plan on leaving anytime soon. We bought the house with the intention of building onto it in the future.

Re: If you bought your house in the height of the market, do you worry about when housing prices will go back up?

We bought in Jan 2007. My house is worth 75K less than what we paid for it. I love my house but sometimes I wish we had waited to buy. Hopefully someday prices will go back up. I don't plan to move anytime soon but wish I had the option if we needed to.

Re: If you bought your house in the height of the market, do you worry about when housing prices will go back up?

We bought in 2004 and I think we probably paid about 50k more than we should have. We bought a house at the time that could be a forever house based on room. However, I want to sell now. I am NOT happy here but I know there is no way our house would sell for much more than we paid for and right now we can't afford to put a biggest enough down payment down to buy another so we are here for awhile.

Re: If you bought your house in the height of the market, do you worry about when housing prices will go back up?

No I dont worry about it. I think so many people are getting caught up with the values of their houses and forgot that these are our homes and long term investments not something to buy and sell every few years.

Re: If you bought your house in the height of the market, do you worry about when housing prices will go back up?

Re: If you bought your house in the height of the market, do you worry about when housing prices will go back up?

We bought in Oct 07, so it was the start of the downward slide... houses in my neighborhood are now selling for 40-60K less than what we paid. We bought it knowing that it is not our forever house, but we could be here for another 10 years easily (unless we're the next Jon & Kate or something). Since I'm not going to guess what the market will look like in 2019, I'm not going to worry about it.

Re: If you bought your house in the height of the market, do you worry about when housing prices will go back up?

Previous poster makes an interesting point.

If you pay your mortgage off early (if you are lucky enough to be able to do so), you could "loose" less money.

Example, if you pay 500k list price for your house, you are actually paying like 900k over the 30 year mortgage because of all the interest.

I have read if you make an extra payment per year, you cut 7 years off the loan. That would bring the actual amount spent down from 900k by A LOT. So someone buying the home for 450K might end up paying more over the full 30 years. KWIM

Interest rates do have a lot to do with it. If you got a good rate, you pay less per month, even if you "overpaid" for the price of your home. You could actually pay the same amount per month as someone with a lower list price but higher borrowing costs.

Guess this won't help if you end up moving in the next few years, I just thought it was an interesting way to look at it.

Re: If you bought your house in the height of the market, do you worry about when housing prices will go back up?

No, not really. We purchased our home in Feb 05 and still can make about $40-45K if we sold it now. We were only planning to stay here 3 or 4 yrs but it looks like we'll be here a little longer. We plan to do some minor upgrades like granite countertops, finishing the basement and changing out some of the bathroom fixtures in the next 2 yrs.

Re: If you bought your house in the height of the market, do you worry about when housing prices will go back up?

And this is why I am so glad we didn't buy a "starter" home at the height of the market. We had decided to rent to save and buy a house that would last us forever because I had a fear of this happening. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for everyone that the market turns around.

Re: If you bought your house in the height of the market, do you worry about when housing prices will go back up?

we bought our primary residence in 2004, later that year our zip code was mentioned in an article as an area that increased in value by 400% in 10 years. The average home was 65,000 in the early 90's and it was near 300,000 by 2004.
It was true, now 5 years later values have decreased by about 15%, which I think is a reasonable and sustainable #.
We only paid $260,000 for my house & we did all of our improvements without using equity so at this point we have paid down a big chunk already and our improvements have a cash value.
I think many people bought not enough house for too much money at the wrong time and then took out too much to improve it leaving them in a bad situation.
We own properties in other towns that have had more siginifigant drops, the homes are rented & I have no plans of selling or borrowing against them so it doesn't matter to me.

The bottom line is, it all comes back around. The upside down phenomenon is not new. LIers survived it in a bad way all through the early 90's.

Re: If you bought your house in the height of the market, do you worry about when housing prices will go back up?

we bought at the end of 2006 but we bought a house big enough to be a forever house and with room to expand.

A house sold in Oct in our hood that is smaller and sold for more $, so I think if we sold we wouldnt lose $. BUT, we aren't going anywhere so I really dont care.

Re: If you bought your house in the height of the market, do you worry about when housing prices will go back up?

Re: If you bought your house in the height of the market, do you worry about when housing prices will go back up?

We are looking to move and plan on just accepting the loss, but knowing the home we buy will be cheaper than it would have been had the market not come down.