Fifth Avenue Forum

I refinanced in Jan and appraised at 75k more than when I bought the home in 2017.

is the housing market really nuts right now?
My sister's looking to build and I said just wait now, no sense in starting when a 2x4 costs $7.

This is an oversimplification of a complicated issue that I honestly don't really understand but will pretend to understand.

But just consider the impact of declining interest rates on home prices. Let's say you have determined that you can pay $900 in P&I for your next purchase.

In 2019, interest rates averaged 3.94%. For a 30 year loan and 900/month payment, that means you can afford a $190,000 mortgage and a $237,000 house (assuming a 20% down payment).

In march 2019, pre pandemic, rates were 3.45%. That gets you a $202,000 mortgage and a $252,400 house.

Now rates are 2.81%. That means you can buy a $273,000 house.

So over the span of 2 years, $900 per month gets you can afford a house that is 15% more expensive without you earning more.

So you can factor in lower mortgage rates plus a limited supply of houses available for sale over the past year or so plus everyone wanting to move because of the pandemic, you have yourself some expensive ass housing.

This is leading to inflation of home prices too. People can afford a higher sale price because of everything you said, so list prices go up.

Prices in our neighborhood hood have gone up 20-30k easily for the same size or smaller house than we bought just back last year. Houses are up for maybe a few days.. and gone. This is Monroeville too, not like we are in Fox Chapel or Cranberry.

I refinanced in Jan and appraised at 75k more than when I bought the home in 2017.

Zillow has us estimated right around that jump in sales price. It sends us alerts monthly just for S&Gs and it's crazy how much it's jumped over the past 4+ years.

I refinanced in Jan and appraised at 75k more than when I bought the home in 2017.

Zillow has us estimated right around that jump in sales price. It sends us alerts monthly just for S&Gs and it's crazy how much it's jumped over the past 4+ years.

My refi/appraisal was enormous. Jumped from 11% equity to 26%.

I had the same situation as ulf when I bought. It appraised 20k below the sale price because an estate sale on my street 6 months prior screwed up the market value. We ended up splitting the difference so I had to come up with another 10k at close. We did LPMI and rolled it into the interest rate at about 1/8 point

*The extra 10k wasn't actual cash but a hit against initial equity

The house I paid $85k for in 2018 appraised for $130k last week. The only upgrade the drive-by appraisal could see is the driveway.

I still don't trust Zillow's number, and never will.

No, Zillow's estimates are garbage. Not rooted in reality, at least in my area. They list our house about $30K above what I think we should be able to get for it now, and what similar houses in our neighborhood have been selling for lately.

In my area, their estimates are $40-80k too low.

No, Zillow's estimates are garbage. Not rooted in reality, at least in my area. They list our house about $30K above what I think we should be able to get for it now, and what similar houses in our neighborhood have been selling for lately.

So I only used it as a guideline.

Our last house we sold in 2012, was underestimated on Zillow. They had it has $20K LESS than what we actually sold it for. We sold it for roughly $60K over what we bought it for and only owned it for 3 years.

Zillow is the Pawn Stars of appraisals.

Last year when we built our deck, word was scarce and expensive. Basically exactly as Kenny described. Lowe's had told us there was crazy demand for people to build decks and stuff to their house because they couldn't go anywhere.

Basically my experience too. In fact I redid my deck this winter with Trex though, on the old subframe. The few pieces of wood I did have to buy to fix some areas was astronomical.

Last year when we built our deck, word was scarce and expensive. Basically exactly as Kenny described. Lowe's had told us there was crazy demand for people to build decks and stuff to their house because they couldn't go anywhere.

Basically my experience too. In fact I redid my deck this winter with Trex though, on the old subframe. The few pieces of wood I did have to buy to fix some areas was astronomical.

Yea ours was wood framed and trex. Wood was expensive. Trex took months to arrive. COVID boned us both ways.

That was one of the reasons I went the stamped concrete route back in the day, along with maintenance and looks (IMO).

Well can't run stamped concrete off the second story of my house lmao.

Well can't run stamped concrete off the second story of my house lmao.

Not with that attitude you can't.

Anyone ever deal with a fence over property line?

Had survey done to be able to measure out house to sit on property. Neighbor has a fence about twenty feet over the line. I don't believe it was ever done intentionally but done stupidly.

Haven't bought land so thinking I could make removal from current owner, who subdivided the lots, part of purchase agreement but don't know how that works. Any thoughts? I'm just wanting to make sure this doesn't become a thing and delays groundbreaking later this summer.

Just experienced the wood price revelation when pricing out a project and realized that building 8 foot long storage racks out of 2x4s and would be more expensive than buying the same dimension metal racks from Costco.

All things considered, I’m pretty happy with how things have worked out with our house. Build was finished December 2018 and our deck was built in 2019, so both major projects were finished before lumber prices got nuts.

The model home in the development going in behind us is about 600 sqft smaller and has a listed “starting price” that is more than our final build price. Add in lot cost, upgrades, and customization and there’s an extra 100k on that price, so we’ve got a hefty amount of equity built in out of thin air.

After months of resisting the urge, we finally bit the bullet last week and decided to refinance again for the second time in a year and a half. I was hesitant to start back at square one on a 30 year mortgage after living in the house for almost 2 and a half years, but our existing lender came at us with 2.25% on a 30 year. Felt too good to pass up. We’re dealing with a hefty no money down VA loan, but we’ll have shaved a total of about 22% of our monthly mortgage payment from when we first moved in.

I refinanced late last year, and would do it again now if rates somehow dropped even lower.

Jeeyzus 2.25 for 30 years. That's a no brainer

It would have to drop at or below 2% for me to refinance. My current mortgage is a 15-year, 2.375% loan. That’s basically what I can get through Better right now.

Anyone ever deal with a fence over property line?

Had survey done to be able to measure out house to sit on property. Neighbor has a fence about twenty feet over the line. I don't believe it was ever done intentionally but done stupidly.

Haven't bought land so thinking I could make removal from current owner, who subdivided the lots, part of purchase agreement but don't know how that works. Any thoughts? I'm just wanting to make sure this doesn't become a thing and delays groundbreaking later this summer.

Have you ever watched Fear Thy Neighbor on ID?

How long has the fence been there? If the answer is "more than 21 years," then that fence is the property line.

How long has the fence been there? If the answer is "more than 21 years," then that fence is the property line.

Haha, I actually looked that up before posting here. House wasn't built until 2005 so fence is at most 16 years.