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Comment by tinza123 | Hacker News Reader

As a passive real estate investor I'm seeing bidding on new sales has actually been more competitive than ever in my area (Atlanta GA). A lot of houses are selling above asking prices with 8-10 offers on the table. I am not sure if people genuinely think it is a good time to buy, or is it mostly FOMO.

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I think people who can work from home and who didn't get laid off are fine and the stonks appeared to mostly recover (which may explain some of the money sloshing around the market).

I think there will be massive economic damage in 6 months that we aren't focusing on right now.

I agree. A good portion of the 40m job loss are not gonna be fully recovered even if the situation improved a little, not to mention it is getting worse by the day.

I actually suspect part of the widespread looting is because people who used to have low paying hourly wages before COVID lockdown feel this dread and desperation as this economic depression unfolds.

widespread looting ... dread and desperation

Yeah, that's the ticket.

It was "dread and desperation" that caused people to loot the Louis Vuitton store in downtown Portland.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Portland/comments/gt9lby/pioneer_pl...

Yup, must be that. Couldn't be people just wanting to steal.

That's my understanding as well.

My wife started a co-working space January this year, it was her office and the co-working bit was to save on the rent with a prediction of some profit in a year or two.

Then covid happened, so we gave our notice to the landlord and are looking for a bigger house, with a spare room she can use as an home-office

We're saving money from the office rent and investing them in a less potentially profitable solution, but safer, at least for the moment.

Apparently this is a thing not just here, but it's global.

I think that's gonna keep the market alive for the next few months, I really can't say what could happen after that.

Is anyone (except govt employees and people making PPE/in healthcare) really fine? The economy is so intricately connected, I feel that everyone will eventually pay the price. The large-corp tech sector has been fine so far but I am not sure how comfortable I am taking on a large mortgage. Atlanta is cheap .. a bay area techie could probably buy a place in cash.

Lots of money has to slosh around as we dig out way out of this hole so wall street banks aren't cutting staff anytime soon.

I've been watching 20+ properties around Austin, some out of genuine interest, others for a baseline. Zero of them moved in March and April despite asking price coming down every couple weeks. Now in the last couple weeks, 8 of them have had offers. I can't tell if they just dropped back into a "reasonable" range or some segment of the market has turned but it's fascinating.

Yeah Atlanta had a similar "dip" period earilier, with many offers cancelled and investors on the sideline. Maybe the "reopen" gave people confidence? I'm afraid it is still too early to tell so I don't want to jump in too fast.

Home sales are seasonal. They peak in the summer at over double the rate of the winter. This occurs in all regions of the US.

Your observation does not deviate notably from typical market behavior.

Home sales always peak when weather is nicer. As do leases for rentals. Leases that were ending a year from today are still ending, and some people are in a great place to buy a home, and inventory is incredibly low right now.

My understanding is real estate was not essential here in Texas. Agents tried to do virtual showings but, come on, most people want to see a home before they submit an offer.

My anecdotal factor in Seattle is we have a set $/month in mind that is then tied to the price of the house. If a house will be more than $650k we can't afford it at this point, even with down payment help. If a house nearby falls to about $650k I'll walk over and check it out to build up examples of what is nice/not or what I like/dislike. The goal is to be able to buy next summer or the year after though so this is mostly experimental to gauge what is out there and identify what we'd like to buy vs pulling the trigger.

I sell real estate in Washington state. What you are describing has been our norm for a while. I am curious - is this a new phenomenon you are seeing in Atlanta? Is it at all price points and areas of the city? Would be interesting to see the data.

I'm not sure how it compared year-to-year, but at the beginning of the COVID thing, house prices did drop a little with quite some offers cancelled (even pending ones, according to some of my agent friends).

How do things look without using the questionable guidance of "asking price"? "Asking price" (and the notion of above asking) often seems like real estate agent reality distortion to me.

Mortgage rates are super low, so some may see this as getting an asset they can leverage in an improved environment later.

I mean listing price is the most direct measure of the market temporature, not saying it's 100% accurate but it does represent the sentiment. Mortgage rate is indeed low, but not that significant compared to before (< 1% compared to 6 month ago I think).

I'm hesitating to bid because 1) price is still high 2) unemployment benefits will run out in 2 months, and I do think teh COVID effects have a long tail, that takes time to pan out. Thus the curiosity about the thought behind the "hot" market right now.

Two obvious theories ... pent up demand/renters with savings and jobs are pulling the trigger (to reduce uncertainty in renting/city slickers moving back to cheaper areas). Alternative is people know QE is debasing the currency and people are going for hard assets (stock market is going in the same direction).

It's also very location specific. Some areas listing too high will hurt you in the long run, so sometimes people definitely do what you're saying - price it low to get lots of offers hoping to get a bidding war. Other areas are much less tolerant of games like that - it's quite regional.

Same thing in SF. Demand dropped, but so did supply, so prices are holding reasonably steady at this point.

I assume if prices drop, they won't stay low for long as people see it as an opportunity to jump into the market.

San Francisco rent is collapsing - largest YoY decreases on record

e: edited

First off, if you read my comments, I'm not talking about rents, I'm talking about sales.

And no, real estate prices in SF are not collapsing.

Apologies - you're both right about the context and about the pricing.

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