Mojo Request Minor first world request....

Denverdave

Denverdave

Resident Ragamuffin
The Mrs and I are neck deep into the thrilling pursuit of buying a house. Honestly I would prefer to wait a year or two, but given what the housing market is in Colorado I might be priced out of the market in another year or so. Denver has been stupid hot with moderately priced homes (like under $325K) attracting way too much attention. One of my co-workers put his house on the market about 2 months ago at $300K. Went on the market on a Friday, by Saturday afternoon there had been over 50 showings and they had 15 contract offers. 3 of which were 10% over the asking price.

Colorado Springs is not quite that hot, but not far off. There are an increasing number of families from Denver moving to the Springs to find affordable housing and commuting the 60+ miles each way to work (like I have been doing for over a year). I'm using a VA loan so we have minimal cash down and given I work for a non-profit we are looking towards the bottom end of the market (prefer under $200K but probably closer to $220k).

The mojo request is that we can find a decent home in a decent area within our price range without having to spend 6 months of losing out due to over saturation of the lower end home buyers. We are more than willing to put sweat equity into something that needs work (paint, flooring, etc) and have a bit of cash put aside for that very thing.

We are pre-qualified already with our lender and most of the way to being pre-approved. We have a realtor. Once the loan qualification goes through (hopefully in less than two weeks) we can start looking. Not looking forward to all the extra that goes into buying a home in this market (BS sob story letters....bidding 10% over asking, etc). But I would also like to buy before the prices get worse and interest rates spike.
 
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Lotsa mojo! went through this same thing (except more $, because Chicago) a year ago and it was a pain in the ass. it does end eventually though!
 
Big mojo!!

The market here is stupid and on its way to ridiculous for very similar reasons.
A homeowner in Toronto can sell there, come here and buy two houses and have cash left over.

So, a lot are making the move. The commute is about the same as you mentioned and there's already a big push to get more commuter train service between here and T.O.

The crazy part is that there seems to be no boundary to the madness. If I wanted to sell, I would do well, but then where do I go? At best, I get a different neighbourhood. Otherwise, it's a wash in terms of house and cash.
 
house hunting mojo.

a co-worker is relocating from toledo to columbus ohio, staying with our corp, but going to that office. and he's had the same problem. been looking for a couple months and finally did just get something nailed down. but it's been like houses listed at say $250k and owners expecting 300k offers and turning down anything less. he makes an offer and by the end of the day there have been 5 more offers well above his.
 
Good luck. In 2010, after having had two rentals homes sold out from under us we made the plunge and bought a home in Santa Clara (Silicon Valley). Paid an insane amount, but now I'm really glad I did, since our house payments are less than monthly rental would be these days. Right now, the median home price in Santa Clara is $1,071,000!!!!
 
The Denver market is insane price wise.
A 2 bedroom 1 bath across the street just sold for $260k last month.
It does have a good size lot though.

Best of luck Dave. The Springs is a nice town. I would love to live there.
 
House mojo!

The market here is crazy. My inlaws sold their house last week about 3 hours after listing.

The house we were in escrow when my daughter was born and we had to walk out on (no furnace) was just listed at $625k. Three bedrooms one bath. Built in 1956 with about a 5k sq ft lot and about a thousand square feet in the house. We offered $360k for it (our current house is down the street and we got it (3bdrm 2 ba. WITH central air and heat, new windows and a larger lot) for much less. Fucking crazy. Our refi appraisal was in the high $500k's last ear. I think we're due for another bubble burst around here.
 
DFB said:
The Denver market is insane price wise.
A 2 bedroom 1 bath across the street just sold for $260k last month.
It does have a good size lot though.

Best of luck Dave. The Springs is a nice town. I would love to live there.
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$260K is downright cheap in Denver right now. Last year Denver was the 3rd hottest market in the country.

the last house I sold we bought in 2003 for $220k. Sold in 2014 for $250K. Less than three years later it would most likely sell for over $350K.
 
Denverdave said:
$260K is downright cheap in Denver right now. Last year Denver was the 3rd hottest market in the country.

the last house I sold we bought in 2003 for $220k. Sold in 2014 for $250K. Less than three years later it would most likely sell for over $350K.
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They are building so much here the prices are not skyrocketing like 2 years ago.

They are atill way high for what you get.
 
DFB said:
They are building so much here the prices are not skyrocketing like 2 years ago.

They are atill way high for what you get.
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My realtor said that Denver is slowly cooling down. the main issues - house prices going way up, salaries are not. So they are slowly pricing themselves out of buyers. I expect a mini bubble here in a year or two. Nothing like 2008 though.
 
House mojo.

The market here is crazy too. I got my house in 2015 (3 bed 2 bath) for 505K, now similar houses are going for well over 550K. I only ended up getting my current house because the previous owner was a colleague who I worked closely with before he retired. You pretty much have to make a snap decision, and be prepared to pay a lot more than you would like to for the house (and more than you think it is worth).
 
Mojo Dave! This may not apply out your way but I always tell home buying folks at work here to try to limit the price to half of your pre-approval. They all want to spend it all.

Happy house hunting!
 
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