TobiasJones

I love all the positive energy you guys have. I really do. BethAnn hit it on the head. I have trust issues with Realtors. I have two friends in San Diego who I respect as inteligent people who recently got forclosed on and a third who is $200K upside down on her house. I expect that their agents also told them something about San Diego being special and all kinds of justifications for why homes were more expensive than they have been historically. They bought into it because San Diego IS a special, unique place with lots of great atributes. And now they are renters again. San Diegos median home price dropped from 525K at the peak to 390K currently. I realize that for a thousand different reasons Spokane is not the same as San Diego. I think that Spokane is different but not immune. I have realized with your help that forclosures will not be any more than a blip on Spokenes' real estate market. My agent in Spokane was a wonderful guy who was very laid back and low pressure. I thought that was a great thing at first. Now I realize if I could open the Supra lock boxes myself he would be entirely useless. I think he is a really nice person he just isn't offering me much of a service. I have found some of your comments very helpful and will probably call you when I find a house I want to make an offer on.

DON I am sorry if you feel like I am being disingenuous when asking for advice. I have been renting for the last 12 years as I followed my wife all over the world. I have been diligently saving and want a house for my family. I am sick of moving but I am just trying to take every precaution that I can to ensure their security. After seeing my co-workers go through the stress of losing their homes I would like to avoid that at all costs. It is my desire to take good care of my familly that is my motivation for all these questions.

Donna: Really! The NAR tagline of "Real Estate Always Goes Up!" and "Now is A Great Time To Buy" are so out dated. If you want me to think of you as anything other than a sleezy snake oil sales woman try a little more thoughtful answer. If I call you can you hook me up with a nothing down loan for the purchace of a house that will have instant equity? Then can I get a HELOC to buy another house as a rental? repeat repeat repeat until I am driving a Ferrari? If I don't "Get in while you can and start riding the equity wave and stop paying your landlords mortgage any longer!" will I be a looser forever? How would you like it if I made medical procedures sound like they were life or death if really I was just trying to pad my pockets. This is exactly the kind of marketing that I find offensive and why i feel I can't trust RE agents. I expect this is what my friends in San Diego got caught up in.
I think Spokane is a beautiful place. My wife just got out of the Navy and we could have moved anywhere in the world. We chose Spokane. I currently expect to retire here (I'm in my early 30s)
I have really apreciated your comments and advice.

WHY I AM GOING TO WAIT: Do you all really think I am missing out on something if I don't buy RIGHT NOW? I don't see anything in the economic forcast that would lead me to believe that prices are going to do anything except go down over the next 6 months. Inflation is up, unemployment is up (6.1% in Spokane in march vs average of 4.8% last year) lending standards are tightening and I believe will continue to tighten over the summer. FHA loans are going to be more expensive starting in July. I think at the price point I am looking at these things are hurting people and will effect their ability to buy a home or stay in their home in the near future. I think invintory will continue to increase and anyone who needs to sell their home will be forced to lower their price. I don't mean to insult anyone when I mentioned that I think home prices may fall. It is only ment as an observation based on market forces that make up the value of anything. I do expect values to increase here in the long term because it is such a beautiful place (and we will have a price explosion when California runs out of water!) I just think there are lots of things that are depressing peoples ability to buy a house and usually when you have an decrease in demand and an increase in supply something needs to change to achive equilibrium. I think in the next six months it has to be prices decreasing. I am actually worried that all the good houses will be bought early and if I wait till the end of summer only trash will be left. I will continue to check the public MLS and go to open houses and hope that my perfect home is out there. I do think that there are well priced homes now on the market but I just haven't seen them. I am realizing the limiits of how much infomation you can gather online. Sometimes you just have to drive down a street to decide if you would want to live there or not.

Thanks everybody. - Mon May 19 2008, 20:16

I DO, But I think some things you just need to see first hand. I Just moved to the area Sunday and have been driving from Fairchild AFB to Liberty Lake trying to get an idea of where I want to live. It looks like prices are falling on new construction in Colbert but I haven't been up there to see if it is worth the commute to downtown.

Good luck with the church! - Sat May 17 2008, 13:19

just my two cents off all the answers that I have recived on Trulia I have found Mark and BJ's to contain the least amount of hype and most substance. For refrence take a look at all of my questions and see how their answers compared to the "it's always a great time to buy just call me" crowd. I don't know what your son is spending now but it seems to me like there is a lot of stuff for sale that is too expensive for average incomes in spokane. If you look at what has sold according to trulia it is all stuff under 200K. If he was looking at an affordable condo I don't think it would be difficult to come out ahead vs paying rent I just would avoid the 1br 1bath 900 sq ft for 400k that would fit more in San Jose than Spokane. - Tue May 6 2008, 17:23

I am sure Lara that you are a great agent and you always look out for your clients best interest. However:

"It is unfortunate that some people abuse this forum to chat and argue with people rather than to actually utilize it for the purposes it was intended for" ARE YOU SAYING EDUCATING SELLERS IS A BAD THING?

I didn't see anywhere that Trulia was exclusively for RE Agent marketing. Having seen a number of my co-workers here in San Diego lose their homes because they didn't do enough of their own homework I think that it is an important part of the largest investment of someones life. The internet is a weath of information and not all of it good. Trulia and Zillows statistics are not perfect. Maybe at your next AR meeting you can suggest making all the MLS information available publicly. It would be great if I could see days on market, history of list price and sold prices from a more trustworthy place than Zillow. Caveat emptor-buyer beware

My point in posting is that I think that buyers need to educate themselves about real estate and not just buy into NAR tag lines. I have no doubt that one of my coworkers who is currently $200,000 underwater on her morgtage ($700,000 loan, neighbors house with the same floorplan selling for $495,000. Built and bought in 2006) bought at fair market prices at the time. I don't think that anyone talked to them about how out of line prices were with historical averages and average incomes, or what a bad idea exotic morgtages were and why maybe spending 45% of your income on housing isn't really a great idea. I hope you go over these points with your clients.

Should your clients consider the posibility that sometimes prices do go down? I noticed today that the University Disrict condos at 103 E Sprague just dropped prices buy about 10%.

"I would want an expert in that field and would rely on the experience of a trained professional" Me too! it's just that there is a shortage of agents that have experianced a declining market and know how to properly represent a buyers interest.

I have learned a lot from looking a Trulia, Zillow, reading agents blogs as well as things like calculatedrisk.com, ml-implode.com and housingwire.com. I think I am less likely to buy more house than I can't afford and in the future I will be able to better save for retirement, my kids college and what ever else I may need in the future because unlike my co-worker I won't overpay for a house. - Tue May 6 2008, 15:18

The market is a little behind the rest of the country right now. Wether or not it is a good place to buy a condo depends on what you are looking for. Today Spokane is not the place for a great deal. A few years ago Spokane was very affordable compared to other areas of the country. Since then the rest of the country has gotten a lot cheaper but Spokane has not. If you are looking for a vacation property Coeur d'Alene, ID was a bit more overbuilt an I think you could get a better deal on a condo depending on what price point you are looking at. If you are looking for a place to live Spokane seems like a nice place (I am moving there from San Diego in two weeks) it seems like the most well rounded city in the region. Coeur d'Alene and Sandpoint are more beautiful locations but are more destination cities and seem to lack some basic services (the opinion of a non resident who has only visited.) There are a lot of condo projects that seem like they have been for sale for more than the year that I have been looking to move up to Spokane

Do your homework before beliving that "It's a great time to buy in Spokane" And price always go up in Spokane. According to Zillow.com average prices in Spokane are down 2-8% compared to last year depending on the neighborhood. Read the responses that have been posted by agents here on Trulia, Zillow and Activerain.com. Decide for yourself if they sound like used car sales people trying to get you to buy today or like they really understand the current market.

Check out the link below for some recent statistics (5/6/08) - Tue May 6 2008, 13:56

"It's always better to buy vs renting"- Debbie Thaut except if you live in CA,AZ,NV,FL,MI,OH,GA,PA......and lately even seattle - Fri May 2 2008, 23:57

would you want a client that asks so many questions? - Thu May 1 2008, 16:11