In spite of the building boom, the housing market around here is so overheated, you’d think it’s Montana. Friends are trying to buy a house but anything they view gets an offer before they manage to get their bearings. One house got an offer while they were driving up to view. It’s not even an issue of price. It’s more a situation of houses being snapped up very fast.
I haven’t seen any “for sale” signs in a while. Before COVID, there were plenty. But now you can go weeks without seeing one.
It’s happening here too. All over Canada. Spouse thinks it’s part of ‘the plan’ to encourage folks to over leverage. He predicts not a very good outcome. But yes it’s absolutely insane! The contrast between a devastated crippled economy, and an extremely hot real estate seller’s market.
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Another theory: It’s an unprecedented bubble. Low interest rate. Add to that, some who have cash, are purchasing gold, silver and? ‘houses’. They are leery of putting everything in the stock- market, even with how lucrative it has been. So what are they doing with their cash now? They’re purchasing tangible assets. This is all very concerning ‘if/when’ that bubble bursts. Considering, those who are over-leveraged trying to ‘get into the housing market’, will experience a sudden crash and decline in housing value, and a higher interest-rate.
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” purchasing tangible assets”
That was my thought too…. you have to have trust in the system to play the stock-market and who could trust the system now?
Real estate, gold and things like that seem like a safer bet – especially if a crash is on the way….
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…exactly. I honestly feel sad and concerned for young families in my community, who are now scrambling to get into the real estate market, and how this may backfire on them if it does crash.
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Where I am, the prices are still not in the range of the 2005/06 pre-bubble burst range. We bought our house in 2005 and even 16 years later we could not sell it for the same price. But on the bright side, we sold an apartment to buy the house and similar apartments are listed now for 20-30,000 less than what we got back in 2005. So there is still space for growth before it all falls on its face. Also, it’s only bad for people who enter the real estate market. If you upgrade, it really doesn’t matter, the money is just numbers in the computer, you sell for more, you buy for more.
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More people working from home means a decreased need for commercial real estate and an increased need for residential real estate.
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Companies have realized if their employees are working from home they don’t need to pay for expensive office building.
Employees have realized if they are working from home they don’t need to buy expensive real estate near their offices. They also now need more space for their home offices.
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