insomnomaniac

Where have all the buyers gone?

OK, I'm really puzzled. I know baby boomers want out of their biggest "investment" so they can downsize. I know that some people have leveraged themselves to the hilt and are now freaking out about being "house poor" so they want to pull money out to pay bills. And I know that the press on the Boston area is pretty lousy ("Most expensive city in America, blah blah blah"), but I still don't get where all these people are going to GO!

Every week here sees dozens of houses put on the market, most of which are still priced very high for what they are. Most of the people who own them need to sell in order to buy anything else. Unless they plan to trade-DOWN to cheaper homes in less-desirable neighborhoods (and what sense does that make if they can remotely afford where they are now), what's their big plan? Are all these people planning to move south like I am? I doubt it. Are they just testing the waters--seeing if they CAN sell, figuring they'll just turn around and buy something, anything as soon as they see what they can get for what they have? Don't they care about moving costs, closing costs, and the possibility that interest rates will go up between now and when they manage to sell their places? I find it hard to believe with all the refinancing options that they aren't already at pretty low rates. Are they perhaps all coming up on the end of their ARM mortgages and now HAVE to sell to avoid big hikes in their rates?

Or is it some of all of the above, coincidentally going on precisely at the moment in time when my dream of finally getting the fuck out of this Godforesaken hell-hole has a chance to come true?

I know, I know, at least my house isn't under water. At least I have a ton of equity in it and wasn't stupid enough to finance it to the hilt. But how am I going to manage this? Here's what's going on:
- I have to be out of here by mid November NO MATTER WHAT. My due date means I have to get where I'm gonna be no later than Thanksgiving. I can't really drive that far after that, and will be massively uncomfortable even then.

- Everyone knows that if a house doesn't sell by then in MA, it ain't gonna sell until earliest end of January, and that's best-case-scenario!

- No matter what, by February 1st I have to have a new place to live (i.e., a HOUSE) in Charlotte or I'll be sporting a rent payment as well as a MA mortgage payment, and I'd rather have two tax-deductions than a hefty rent payment (heftier than any mortgage payment) and a mortgage.

- There just aren't any houses to buy in Charlotte! They have the opposite problem we have here. No one is selling a decent house, the only ones selling are crappy, overpriced, far away from "Uptown" (what they call downtown), in lousy school zones, etc...The ones that are great stay on the market about 30 seconds and sell for well over asking in four-way bidding wars. Many buyers are even waiving appraisal which means they are OK financially if the appraisal tells them their house isn't worth what the seller is demanding for it (or even close) and the bank refuses to finance it at the last second! Who ARE these people? Are they all moving from areas like San Francisco or New York with giant wads of cash in their pockets??? Are they real estate speculators looking to gobble up all the desirable locations to resell them in 6 months for higher prices? All of the above?

- If I move and take my stuff with me, MA will force me to pay "vacant dwelling insurance" which is $1800 for only 3 mos coverage! That's twice what I pay for homeowers for a WHOLE YEAR! Plus I'd have storage. If I leave stuff here, I'm forced to live in the rental furnished place as long as possible.

All things considered, it still works out better for us if we have to buy before we sell because storage and the cost of moving twice (from this house to storage to another house later) would be more than the stupid vacant dwelling policy, and because in all likelihood we won't find a good place to buy between Thanksgiving and end of January, and that means we'll be paying that high rent AND our MA mortgage.

But this whole thing is DAMN scary! It's too late to back out now. My husband's last day at his old job is Friday, and his first day of the new one is early October! He's going down ahead of us, but we must follow no more than a month later. Also, our rate-lock for our bridge loan is only 60 days. I feel like I have 30 days to sell my current house and only 60 days to put another one under contract. It all sounds doable until you look at the perfectly ridiculous markets I'm in and trying to get into!

I sure can pick 'em eh? Again, how many life stressors is too many?
- New baby
- New job
- Selling a house
- Buying a new house
- Moving to a new state

Anything else??? And I'm supposed to be potty-training my daughter through all of this? Guess who'll be wearing diapers a little longer?

Sorry to be such a whiner. I know all things considered I'm very lucky. I am getting out. One way or another, I will get out of MA, and I'm sure it will all work out in the end, I just wish I knew how, and I wish it didn't have to be so expensive. We will end up being like true immigrants in the sense that we will probably have to raid our life-savings to make this all happen, and I just hope it's worth it. If we're not the only people who have the same idea, we could end up just living in a North Carolina hijacked by greedy carpetbagging Northeastern liberals! It will matter not that I'm not one of those then, local people will lump me right in with them, and I may be right back where I started. Let's hope not.

Part of me thinks our timing is awful, but then again, what would have happened if we'd waited longer? Would we have to sell at more of a loss come spring? Would prices in NC be even higher then too? Would everything be even harder with an infant AND a toddler? I'm guessing yes. At least that's what I tell myself whenever I start questioning my sanity.

If any of you can send some good karma our way, I'd appreciate it. I've been praying and even going so far as to bury St. Joseph in my yard (at the suggestion of a Catholic realtor). Everyone who looks at our house loves it, and supposedly two different families want it, but they have to sell first, so let's pray for them too!

As you can imagine, I can't pay much attention to the stuff everyone else is blogging about because of all of this. I watch and read the news still, but if I stop to think too long and hard about it, I really will go insane. If nothing else, I have to hold it together for Emma. She doesn't need to know that Mommy is practically falling apart at the seams, right?

Posted by insomnomaniac at September 27, 2005 4:36 AM