Wednesday, February 6, 2008

The Housing Market...here...


My neighbor put his home up for sale (he is returning to India) last week. His house is a bit bigger than ours, but all in all pretty comparable in size and condition. He had an open house last week. I went over, like all nosy neighbors do, and saw some of the upgrades. He put in granite countertops, and all stainless steel appliances in the kitchen. But other than that, not too much else was done. He was asking $689,000. Not bad, because he was one of the original owners 9 years ago, as were we, and only paid $305,000 for the home. I saw him yesterday and he told me there is a contract on his house for a bit over $670,000. I was very happy, because this only took 2 weeks, which means there are buyers out there keeping up the values. Several years ago, the house would have probably sold for $720,000, but the house still more than doubled in appreciation. Not a bad return for your money!

5 comments:

Canadian Saver said...

This is proof that real estate is one of your best investments you can make...

Do you plan on living in your house forever?

Sharon said...

No. I don't particularly like this area..but hubby has a good job, the schools are wonderful and the two older ones are in VA state schools, so in state tuition. My husband and I would LOVE to retire at a lake, in a small town...somewhere...we just don't know where..

Canadian Saver said...

I'm probably going to move to the city in 15-20 years... unless I have so much money that I can hire kids to mow the lawn, folks to plow the snow, etc etc.

Retiring at a lake somewhere would be awesome!

Noel Larson said...

Before you move to a small town try an extended vacation first!

I have had friends retire to go do the B&B thing and realize they missed all of the things they used to do!

Sharon said...

Yes, that is for sure. We are spending another week at Smith Mountain Lake, near Roanoke, Virginia. It is absolutely beautiful, and may be a place where we would like to retire. But not until we spend some time in all four seasons there...for sure.