Housing market

Oct 2, 2008
3,807
Pearson/ 530 Strafford, NH
Hi all,
We wintered in the Chesapeake and had a number of live aboards at our marina. Many of them had sold their homes with the market being strong. Since May first there have been even more boats launched by people who have done the same. Many buying boats for the size and no interest in leaving the slip (good for the local diver). Now that we’re in our home state, we’re finding a frenzy in the housing market and a shortage of new homes. Just wondering if this is common elsewhere?
 
Jan 11, 2014
11,268
Sabre 362 113 Fair Haven, NY
The housing market is wild, it is a seller's market. From what I've read there is a shortage of available homes and the demand surged after Covid. People living in cities wanted to move to the suburbs, people who are working have extra money due to the relief packages passed by congress and because vacations and entertainment budgets are flush, and perhaps most importantly mortgage rates are at an historic lows. Buyers are trying to take advantage of the low rates. Now is a good time to sell, not so much to buy. In some areas houses are selling for more than the asking price by a lot.

Overall the boat market seems to be a seller's market too. Last summer a kayak could not be bought for any price, RVs are selling quickly, smaller powerboats sales have increased, and the supporting retail outlets are busy. Defender used to have a same day shipping policy, no more.

I suspect things will settle down in a year or so.
 
Jan 19, 2010
12,340
Hobie 16 & Rhodes 22 Skeeter Charleston
Yep
Most houses in my area sell in a few days after a bidding war and sell for more than the asking price. I know a realtor in the area who says half of his listings get an offer on the day it lists
 
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Jan 1, 2006
7,025
Slickcraft 26 Sailfish
In Martin County in Florida the real estate market is red hot. The realtors complain that there is no inventory, what comes to market sells in days and at higher than asking prices. New building is slowing because of increases in materials which is making it difficult for builders to guess what materials will cost.
 

Ward H

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Nov 7, 2011
3,641
Catalina 30 Mk II Barnegat, NJ
I have a neighbor who put her small rancher up for sale. In the first 3 days she had 40 buyers look at the house. Then they closed the showings. People were lined up in the street waiting their turn to go through. She sold for several thousand $s over her asking price.
 

DougM

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Jul 24, 2005
2,242
Beneteau 323 Manistee, MI
Send the buyers my way... I have a place on the water with deeded slip space and a boat that I might sell if the price was really right. Not totally committed to the idea though.
 
Jan 19, 2010
12,340
Hobie 16 & Rhodes 22 Skeeter Charleston
There was a story on the local NPR station last evening about this. The "experts" say that there are seval factors at play... all leading to a supply side problem.

1) The pandemic allowed (forced) a lot of people to work from home and being home so much, many decided to upgrade to a larger place with more outdoor room. Thus a decrease in supply.

1.1) Many people are thinking they may continute to work from home in the future so are looking for a larger place.

2) Supply chain disruptions and labor force disruptions have adversly affected new home building. For example, Robert Dietz, (chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders) was quoted as saying that soaring lumber prices has increased the average cost of new home construction by $36,000* . Also, construction infrastructure in new home construction has still not fully recovered its capacity after the implosion in 2008. Fewer (and more expensive) new homes results in pressure on the used-home market.

3) Many home's being purchased are actually being being purchased by investors hoping to cash in on the shortage by increasing their rental property holdings. This also contributes to a decrease in supply.

*Soaring lumber prices add $36,000 to the cost of a new home, and a fierce land grab is only making it worse
 
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Jan 11, 2014
11,268
Sabre 362 113 Fair Haven, NY
Send the buyers my way... I have a place on the water with deeded slip space and a boat that I might sell if the price was really right. Not totally committed to the idea though.
The only problem with selling into a seller's market is that you become a buyer in a seller's market and will pay a higher price for the next property you buy.
 
Nov 26, 2012
1,653
Hunter 34 Berkeley
Absolutely. Two homes in my neighborhood recently went from "Coming Soon" to "Pending" and skipped the "For Sale" part. It seems to be everywhere. I can only guess that all the folks who planned to sell last year put it off to this year and now we have kind of a doubling up.
 
Nov 21, 2007
631
Beneteau Oceanis 34 Kingston, WA
We have been both buyer and seller this year. We bought a house to remodel, and sold our condo. The condo sold and closed in a third of the "average" time on market. Now, we're trying to remodel... one contractor quit (we suspect that our whole house remodel was too small of a job for his liking), we're now waiting for another to gather estimates and quotes before he starts work. We are finding that appliances should be selected based on whether there is inventory in stock. Some refrigerators have a wait time of more than six months. One flooring store told us that the flooring we were asking about was expected to arrive by container ship in July, but had all been sold already. Trades people have more work booked than they can efficiently handle. I have been waiting a couple of weeks for answers to questions and emails to two local utilities.

We have been semi-living aboard (and 'glamping' at the house) while waiting for demolition to start, and we are looking forward to warmer weather and a lot of time on the boat again this year, whether it's what we want, or not.
 
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Oct 22, 2014
20,932
CAL 35 Cruiser #21 moored EVERETT WA
The only problem with selling into a seller's market is that you become a buyer in a seller's market and will pay a higher price for the next property you buy.
This is factually true. Yet it assumes you are still going to play in the market.

If on the other hand you are buying into the boat world, you can get a lot of boat for the price of most houses. Then you are deciding to change your paradigm and travel a path less taken. Not an easy decision for most folk.

Included in the above structural sell/buy scenario, is that you are buying right back at an equivalent or higher level in the same market place. Some chose to down size, other choose to relocate to a less hot market and some chose to stay on the sidelines for a while. As with many markets things go up and things go down. Buy low and Sell High... In 2008 the housing market crashed. If you had sold in 2007 you would have had a smorgasbord of opportunities to buy in 2008. Unfortunately we are not given a crystal ball at birth.

So we make the best decision possible and then set our sails and move forward.

Yes, it is a sellers market here in the Pacific NW. We made an offer on a condo. It was a full offer without contingencies. The other offer was $30,000 over the asking price. That is after the asking price of the comparable condo had jumped $100,000 in 6 months. High demand low supply.

Oh well. Glad I did not sell my house first.
 
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Apr 11, 2010
946
Hunter 38 Whitehall MI
Have heard stores of houses here going anywhere from a few thousand to a hundred thousand over asking. And you must waive the contingency of passing inspection or appraising for what you paid. If you don’t sellers move on to one of the other 30 plus offers they received. Many of them cash offers.
 

DougM

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Jul 24, 2005
2,242
Beneteau 323 Manistee, MI
The only problem with selling into a seller's market is that you become a buyer in a seller's market and will pay a higher price for the next property you buy.
Not going to be buying in a seller’s market... That is the advantage I have. I sold one house late last year, after I bought a third house 10 months prior to that while the market was still somewhat down. The upside is that I can sell one place without having to be concerned with where to go next, and I am not in any hurry anyway.
I just thankful that I completed a major remodel of the one I recently purchased before material cost and supply issues went nuts.
 
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Apr 8, 2011
767
Hunter 40 Deale, MD
Same situation in Northern Virginia and the entire DC Metro and surrounding area. We've seen our house appreciate on Zillow (FWIW) substantially over the pandemic - much more quickly than at any other time since we built it 6 years ago. We started looking to buy a vacation property to also rent out at a resort 2 hours away, and found the inventory was almost nil. As soon as a place came on the market it sold with multiple competing bids over the asking price. We looked at a few places that were getting ready to go on the market - literally while the photographer was there taking the photos for the online ad. Some of them were just wrecks - very poorly maintained, not clean, and needing tens of thousands of dollars to in renovations to make them desirable rentals. We looked at one new place under construction that had a stream running through one corner of the foundation - it went under the house on one side, and came out the front of the house! Those places sold in bidding wars, and in some cases sight unseen by cash buyers. Man, I would've been PISSED if I'd been THAT guy on many of those homes. The retouched photos looked good online, but not at all what the house really looked like close up.

We eventually ended up successfully buying a property that we really like, but our realtor's son was the listing agent and during the negotiations the realtor gave us a lot of "You all do what you want, but what I would do if I was you..." advice. It was ultimately that advice which structured the deal successfully, but I'm certain it was inside baseball on the seller he shouldn't have had access to. And even though we overbid the asking price to get the home, the appraisal found that the realtors undervalued the property substantially, resulting in us having equity on day 1 of our mortgage. We lucked out. I really didn't want to be upside down at the start.
 
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TomY

Alden Forum Moderator
Jun 22, 2004
2,758
Alden 38' Challenger yawl Rockport Harbor
It's not easy to build these days. I can't get what I want, (much is unavailable), so like others I have to figure out alternative material. Somebody was buying T-111 plywood finish siding to sheath a roof. A 3/4" CDX sheet is costing $105, if you can get it.

2X4X8', a $3.50-+staple that was thought to be inflation proof, is nearly 10 bucks today. Better get what you need: My supplier told me the next load of 2X4's will cost THEM $10.

I needed some stairway stringers today. This beauty, almost knot-free is in the mid 40's in cost, this week.

2X12X12'.jpg


One thing we don't hear about is that many lumber mills laid off workers at the onset of Covid-19. They figured (like many biz's), the pandemic would cause a downturn in homebuilding. Ha!

There was a short lag but now buyers are backing up for housing.

When the lumber shortage began (it was well underway because of the mill cutbacks), nobody was available to work, or got sick while working.

This will take a while to shake out. Meantime, houses are going to keep going up as buyer demand increases.
 
Feb 6, 1998
11,663
Canadian Sailcraft 36T Casco Bay, ME
It's pretty nuts here too. For the first time ever, in our neighborhood, just a tick North of Portland, ME, we are seeing homes being purchased for top dollar. A few weeks later an excavator is knocking it down.

The house directly behind us sold last fall for close to 900K and three days ago the excavator showed up to demolish the beautiful cedar shingled garage that had been there for a hundred years. At the top of the hill one was torn down last month and diagonally across the street from it was torn down in early March. People are basically paying close to a million dollars for a piece of land with a house on it, knocking the house down, then building million dollar plus homes. None of the recent sales have been folks from Maine. The four most recent are DC, NYC, CA, CT. My friend Dana moved home to Maine from Boston and she bid on 8 homes. She finally got the 9th. Her lowest bid was 65K over asking price. Her highest was 104K over and she finally got it. She's in a house that 5 years ago would have been 279K - 299K and she paid 729K for it.
 
Feb 6, 1998
11,663
Canadian Sailcraft 36T Casco Bay, ME
It's not easy to build these days. I can't get what I want, (much is unavailable), so like others I have to figure out alternative material. Somebody was buying T-111 plywood finish siding to sheath a roof. A 3/4" CDX sheet is costing $105, if you can get it.

2X4X8', a $3.50-+staple that was thought to be inflation proof, is nearly 10 bucks today. Better get what you need: My supplier told me the next load of 2X4's will cost THEM $10.

I needed some stairway stringers today. This beauty, almost knot-free is in the mid 40's in cost, this week.

One thing we don't hear about is that many lumber mills laid off workers at the onset of Covid-19. They figured (like many biz's), the pandemic would cause a downturn in homebuilding. Ha!

There was a short lag but now buyers are backing up for housing.

When the lumber shortage began (it was well underway because of the mill cutbacks), nobody was available to work, or got sick while working.

This will take a while to shake out. Meantime, houses are going to keep going up as buyer demand increases.
Tom,

I feel your pain. My brother and I have two building projects underway and the materials shortage is killing us not to mention materials prices. Right now we just bounce from plumbing to electrical to roofing, to masonry etc. based on what we can get. Our current wholesale price (last weekend) for a KD 2X4X8 was $10.86 from Western Supply in Bethel. When we started the project two years ago we were paying $2.59 for the same 2X4. There's no going in order like we used to be able to do on a build. We're using more rough sawn hemlock beams than engineered lumber and you know what, it looks better too.

That said, we logged off quite a bit of the white and red pine from our property up North and the income was insanely good. Most of it went to the Hancock mill in Bethel. Kind of hard to complain about the lumber prices when the timber we sold bought us some serious earth moving toys.

We had hoped to have one of the projects ready to rent this fall but we still have about 6 months of 16 hour weekends to go... We hate to miss a ski season on this property but we don't want to have a mortgage on it either so we keep chugging along. Slow and steady wins the race. Oh, and don't even get me going on Matthews Brothers window lead times right now (we always try to buy local).. We made a couple of last minute revisions and needed two more windows, ordered them yesterday morning and we are being told 10-12 weeks. Meanwhile Matthews Brothers is blowing up the airwaves with ads for their windows like they don't have enough business. They used to be 3-4 weeks now its 10-12.

I won't even start to mention the inventory shortages in the marine market right now. D'oh!!
 

Bob S

.
Sep 27, 2007
1,769
Beneteau 393 New Bedford, MA
Tom,
If it's any consolation, NH is the hottest RE market in the country! We bought our house 20 years ago and raised a blended family of seven children. We decided to throw our house on and downsize seeing it's just the two of us. The realtor had an open house last weekend and got 5 offers Monday all over asking. We haven't signed the P&S yet and are now looking for a potential new home. I keep joking with her "we should put the money in the bank and live on the boat this summer"! She won't do it :mad: . We are in a good position as we own a house in NH ski country and if need be we could shack in our boat. It's all relative sell high buy high.
I have a young contractor with 2 young kids who sold his house late last year at 40k over asking. He was elated. They decided to move in with his parents and went on a housing search in the neighboring town closer to his parents. He is now totally depressed claiming he could even buy his old house back!
 
Jan 11, 2014
11,268
Sabre 362 113 Fair Haven, NY
Tom,
If it's any consolation, NH is the hottest RE market in the country! We bought our house 20 years ago and raised a blended family of seven children. We decided to throw our house on and downsize seeing it's just the two of us. The realtor had an open house last weekend and got 5 offers Monday all over asking. We haven't signed the P&S yet and are now looking for a potential new home. I keep joking with her "we should put the money in the bank and live on the boat this summer"! She won't do it :mad: . We are in a good position as we own a house in NH ski country and if need be we could shack in our boat. It's all relative sell high buy high.
I have a young contractor with 2 young kids who sold his house late last year at 40k over asking. He was elated. They decided to move in with his parents and went on a housing search in the neighboring town closer to his parents. He is now totally depressed claiming he could even buy his old house back!
Since you have a two nice places to live, waiting a year for things to settle down might be the prudent move. At least wait until the off season for housing sales this winter.
 
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