Yeah, the last house I bid on and didn't get had like $400/month HoA and one attached wall to a neighbor's house but the community it was in had it's own lake with walking trails around it and where you could even fish, and was like a 15 min walk to a huge national park. Was so cool and I stuck in the bidding war for $60k over asking, but skipped out when it went to $120k over asking.
In retrospect, even at $120k over asking I think it was a better deal than anything on the market now. I know everything looks better in hindsight but yeah I definitely should've stuck in even if I ended up $150k over asking. Would still be less than the place I'm bidding on now (which is larger, nicer interior, has a yard and no attached wall) and the location would've been super nice to live at.
It's so rare finding anything with a really cool location like that around here in So Cal south of LA, I'm half tempted to withdraw my offer and just sit longer on the market, but goddamn every month I've been sitting watching stuff I swear prices have gone up another $50,000-$100,000 and interest rates are up another 1%.
Just such a terrible market.
I didn't buy in 2019 because I was like it's been too long since we've had a housing crash and they're cyclical, if I hold out prices will come down
I didn't buy in 2020 because I'm like pandemic is fucking up the world economy and the economy is going to crash and house prices will come down
I didn't buy in 2021 because it was like holy fuck this prices are now so expensive, how can this continue like this? Prices will have to come down once more houses get on the market
I didn't buy in 2022 because it was like holy fuck, now things are another 20% higher than last year, people are talking about a recession coming in 2023, inflation is going through the roof and feds are going to start raising interest rates and house prices should come down in reflection
Yet, all that happened was that prices generally stabilized, maybe went down very slightly and people stopped listing their houses on the market waiting to see if prices would go back up so there was nothing to buy. Then 2023 hit and interest rates started to go down slightly, the news said "no recession is going to happen in 2023!" and suddenly people were rushing out to buy in mass again and prices started going back up and are even higher than 2022.
Basically because I'm financially conservative with a wait and see approach I've continually fucked myself every year by not buying, so at this point I'm just totally over it and will pay out my ass and buy a place because I've got to get out of my crummy condo and I just don't know if things will ever actually come down significantly again until there's way more inventory on the market in like 10 years or something.
It's very frustrating.
