Still on my vigilant homes sales watch and hoping to catch a great price - at least that's what people tell me I can do. But guess what? It doesn't seem to me that sellers are budging on their prices much. With loans getting tougher and tougher to come by, one would thnk that they would be atuned to the current atmosphere. What's going on? Any thoughts?

Who knows? A home across the street from me is overpriced by $100,000! This is not merely opinion. I've run the comps. I think that they must have used their home as an ATM machine and have to sell for that much so as not to bring a check to the settlement. There is no other explanation for that price.

Actually, I hope they get it. I'm putting my home on the market in December, so it will only help me.

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A lot of people do not want to believe that their homes are not worth what they think they are. The also think that this mortgage crises is a short term problem and that they can just wait it out. They are wrong on that score.

For buyers prices are going to drop but very slowly so there are no quick bargains to be had.
This thing is a big mess and it is going to take years to right itself.

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Lyndon Johnson in 1960 explained the appeal of racial demagogy: "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

We've been looking in the Paoli/Berwyn/Wayne areas and had no idea what we should be looking to pay. So when we saw the 10+ houses we could afford, we thought "Oh maybe we can't afford to live here..." Then one house dropped its price by $35K from its last asking price and 3 families were all over it...so we thought about bidding as well.

When the realtor sent me the comps, I saw much nicer houses/neighborhood for the same price or slightly higher...so we backed out of putting in a bid to my realtor's chagrin. And lots of homes we were looking at were overpriced by at least $50K, some as high as $80K!

My realtor keeps telling me its a great time to buy, I will pay more if I wait, etc. And I'm just trying to figure out if she truly believes this and is actually acting in what she thinks is my best interest or just wants to book a sale as I'm sure she's not selling like she used to...

According to some fancy-pants economist on the news, home prices should hit bottom in 2 months.

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Are they tassels or sequins, on the fancy pants...errr, never mind

Thanks for the tip though!

I'd say watch the next 2 months & see what happens in Delco. Families with kids will be hoping to buy, sell or move within the beginning to middle of summer if most of them hope to be well settled before school starts.
So if by the end of May there hasn't been much action, I'd believe that things are stalled.

I'd say we're in the beginning of a slippery slope downwards. As such, sellers are still going for the best price they can get; good houses with somewhat attractive prices will still sell, but you will probably still be buying for too much. IMO, people will begin to budge later in the summer, when things don't go as smoothly as they thought. Sellers with the garbage homes will begin to panic and cut greatly, which will put pressure on the nicer stuff. This will probably, likley, last until the 2009 season.
As for your broker, who knows, it is a good time to buy compared to the last two years.

Hello!

I really think you should wait as long as possible to jump into buying. This area is a little behind the rest of the country, and sellers are being VERY stubborn (or, they're HELOC'ed to the point where they can't reduce price) - but we've got quite a high inventory of new and recent homes, so quite the inventory overhang too (especially where I live in Chester County - who is going to live in all these giant homes?).

Your agent is going to tell you to jump now while interest rates are low - and they are very, very low right now - but I would counter that with - the house value you would pay now is going to go down significantly in the near future. I could see 30 percent drops or more in this area, from 05/06 pricing. So, yes you'd be getting a better mortgage rate, but you'd be overpaying.

We bought our first house in a housing downturn - it was quite depressing, looking at homes that had been trashed by owners and renters - and our mortgage interest rate was like 8.5 percent (they were just going down so we thought that was a great rate!) and you really had to put significant money down then (not that long ago!). BUT - it was way better cos then when rates went down, we could refinance into a loan with a way better rate!

You can always get a new loan with a lower rate, but you can't alter the price you paid! So wait, wait, wait. Eventually push will come to shove, the resale owners will realize that new or nearly new homes are out there under their prices, and things will start to fall fall fall. It might take a little longer than other parts of the country, but it's coming here too. We're not different.

Hi, Noodles. Ya know on the Philly forum, they "fight" about this all the time. They are great and witty writers, and the constant argument is both entertaining and informative. Many believe that Philly and its burbs are simply not part of the danger equation, as evinced in the March issue of Philly mag. I just so wanted out of here this summer, but where I really want to go is impossible price-wise....sigh...