Saturday, March 14, 2009

The Housing Market

We're re-listing our house this week and dropping the price.

Last night I stayed up until the wee hours looking at all the MLS listings for Santa Cruz, California, where I used to live. Prices there are sliding - especially on the low end of the market. Compared to the rest of the world, real estate in this coastal town is still ridiculous, but not quite as ridiculous as it was last year.



Several things caught my eye: there were stand-alone houses (albeit small, decrepit ones out in the boonies) listed for under $300,000. Even one or two under $200,000. I haven't seen that in years.

Suddenly there is a flood of mobile homes and condos on the market, too. People are unloading their second and third (investment) properties. Some are probably trying to get out while the getting is still good. One in particular caught my eye - a two bedroom, two bath mobile home not far out of downtown Santa Cruz. It's price? $40,000. That's unheard of - at least in this last decade.

Western Canada is different than California, but I can see what's coming; it's time for us to sell. So I'm going to shake off these March blahs, get a sign out in our front yard and clean the house from top to bottom. I'm ready for our next project. Let's get going!

2 comments:

Jenne in AZ said...

You will be near me!!! That would be very very cool.

(We sold the house and moved to California in December for job reasons.)

Jennifer Feddersen said...

Whoops! I should have explained better.

I keep an eye on the SC housing market because I do want to move back there....some day. Unfortunately that's not right now.

We're currently planning to move across town to a house we already own but are renting out at the moment. We'll do a big renovation and live there for now.

Sorry. It would be very, very cool to be near you!