Resale home prices (asking) are sky rocketing
 

Still doing my (very expensive) homework as I have a few years left before retirement and am keeping an eye on house prices.

Is it just me... but from what I see lots of house listings have asking prices that are 40% higher than what the houses sold for just 1 - 2 years ago. The new house prices haven't gone up more than 5-10 %(however granite and other up-sells are no longer included)

With another thread recently saying resale house volumes are down... are some sellers getting ahead of themselves. Is anyone seeing big gaps between asking and sales prices?

Will be down at the end of the month to kick a few more tires :)

T-325 (now 2-3 years out)

You are one smart cookie.

Prices are going to have to get a little more realistic.

When you look at the price of a new house you are really seeing the price of a bare bones residence. After moving in many people spend $20,000 to $80,000+ on improvements to their house. Projects such as new floors, crown moulding, driveway stones or designs, glassed in lanais, attic stairs, extra landscaping, etc.. all add up to thousands of dollars. So when people go to sell their house they often add all these improvements to the price they paid for it originally. So if you paid $290,000 in 2013 for your stretched, Gardenia designer home and then added $60,000 in major improvements you would price your home at $350,000. After paying a realtors commission you actually would lose money on the house, but this market is not strong enough to recoup all your monies, in my opinion. The prices I see do not reflect much upside over the last year and a half. You can still find a new, bare bones Gardenia in the $290,000 price range. The used market actually seems soft and home owners are not getting the price they think is right (cost plus improvements) I know people who have taken their year and a half old homes off the market because no one will give them an offer they want.

it also seems in the winter months house prices are higher--the hope is to snag a snowbird willing to pay. I'd keep looking at list vs sale prices.

And if your improvements are to your specific tastes, they may not appeal to buyers. There were stainless steel appliances in the house we bought, but we did not pay a premium for them. Although pretty, they are a pain in the patootie to clean. That figured into our offer.

As The Villages and it's lifestyle reputation grows, and demand increases, so goes the home prices. Some resales do seem unreasonably high right now, but I guess a house is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.

Is there a bubble within the bubble?

I would say some people are just trying to make more than they should on the sale of their home. However, this often means they drop the price to a more realistic level later and miss sales in the meantime. Several houses we looked at in December are now priced more reasonably. We may have gone a different direction if they had been priced that way in December. Too bad for them.

Anybody interested in properly pricing listings might benefit from reading "The New Rules of Real Estate" by the founders of Zillow, Spencer Rascoff and Stan Humphries, two very, very sharp guys. It is an easy read and the authors make some interesting points on why some properties appreciates while others do not.

Very hard to compare the used housing market year to year........unless you have hundreds in each pool, individual items within the home are make it impossible to compare...........finishes, lot size and location, etc. 40% seem high to me...........have not seen that type of increases over a two year period. You did say asking price, so there could be some exceptions out there.

Nobody has data...?

Hate to say it, but people do get greedy. They look upon their house as a gold mine when maybe it's really just Worth silver

Spotting an overpriced house here in The Villages is pretty easy. It is anything that has been on the market for more than a week. Houses priced right are gone in hours, especially this time of year with so many buyers looking.

but prices definitely have gone up. I bought in May, 2013 and at that time some 2br 2br courtyards resales were still listing in the high 160s and low 170s. Nothing like that now.
and that was an increase from a few months before.