Good morning to all...

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-14-2005
Good morning to all...
16
Mon, 07-02-2007 - 12:39pm

Hope this Monday morning finds everyone having a good start to the week.

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Avatar for shirley_v
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-29-2000
Thu, 07-05-2007 - 11:44pm

The real estate market here has been booming the past year and our home which we bought for $213,000. in 1997 is now worth somewhere around $450,000 if not more? I'm not totally sure what the worth of it is as we haven't had it evaluated recently, but that is just about the "average" price of a home in this city in Alberta. I don't know how many of my kids will be able to buy a home - though the boom in prices will probably not continue to rise after a time. But it's just so expensive to buy a home now here. Not quite like California standards, but still high for this place!

Shirley

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-14-2005
Fri, 07-06-2007 - 12:12am

Wow, Shirley!

Avatar for shirley_v
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-29-2000
Fri, 07-06-2007 - 10:42am

Janet, I wonder if these prices will 'hold'...and we aren't about to sell our house just yet and even if we did, well, it seems that wherever we decide to move to, in and around the city, houses are all equally expensive and more so even! Even bungalows that are located in the area just behind our house are much sought after by we babyboomers who are now looking to downsize in housing and they are just as expensive as our two-storey house!

Now, I must go and finish the job of painting our backyard deck while the air is deliciously cool and it's even windy out there!

Shirley

Avatar for nora_adamsmom
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-29-2003
Fri, 07-06-2007 - 12:19pm

How can anyone buy a house where SusieG lives, or Elspeth?My goodness-how discouraging for young people!

We bought our home almost 25 years ago-3 year old bungalow with almost 5 acres, fronting (with 200ft)on the small bay of a small lake.It cost us $69,000.Now, judging by what I have seen, it is probably worth about $300,000-possibly up to $350,000.We are quite a distance from town-but there seem to be more & more developments coming this way plus a lot of cottages being bought & converted to permanent homes.

Today (my friend)Penny & I were discussing this-she went down the trails on Adam's Mule-& said this is what she & her dh are looking for-a small lake (ie-good for canoeing-no big motorboats)& a bungalow as opposed to the 2 story they are now in-part of a large subdivision with "Executive homes".She has about 2 acres-but would like to downsize the house & upgrade the lot.Doug is retiring next year & they will look for something similar in distance from town & such.Unfortunately-they aren't creating waterfront any more-so privacy & lakefront are not easy to achieve together!

So I will enjoy my wee piece of heaven...although I do complain in winter storms, most of the time I wouldn't sell for anything!

Nora

Avatar for susiegail
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Fri, 07-06-2007 - 1:17pm
"They" say that of all the people who live here in San Francisco (@800,000), 12% could afford to buy a home today. My MIL's home is 2BR., 1 bath, LR, DR and kitchen, built in 1920 and needs a lot of work. It's in the fog belt where you barely sees the sun all summer. It is currently being rented by our nephew and his wife because MIL is in an AL facility. It was bought by my MIL & FIL in 1950 for $9,000. When it was appraised, earlier this year, it was appraised for $750,000 as is. How's that for sticker shock??! It's totally outrageous. I have students whose parents have bought homes ninety and a hundred miles away from San Francisco, but they still work in The City and have their kids in school here...that kind of a commute is my idea of a nightmare. It's enough to make people like me, who are from here, wish we had somewhere to go BACK to - LOL!
Sue

 

Avatar for elc11
Community Leader
Registered: 06-16-1998
Fri, 07-06-2007 - 1:57pm

"How can anyone buy a house?" Its a big problem here. The middle income people like teachers, firefighters etc CANNOT afford to buy here, and the lower income people can hardly afford to even rent here because rents are getting outrageous too. Plus the "gentrification" is spreading and what used to be poor neighborhoods near the urban core are getting fixed up, rents/purchase prices get jacked up, and the poor people have to move farther away--the people that can least afford to pay for commuting. It is going to create a problem of keeping the "service" workers here. I think that prices are starting to back down a little but they had gotten so overinflated that they are still out of reach for many people. If we had not purchased our home back when we did there's no way we could afford to buy here now. I don't know how my kids will be able to afford to buy if they stay in urban San Diego. If you're willing to live an hour away it is much more affordable but not cheap. That is where a lot of teachers etc have bought, then they try to get jobs closer to their new homes (because at rush hour that one hour drive turns into 2 and 3 hrs) and where will the replacement workers live?

We plan to stay in this house until we die then leave it to our kids, to sell or whatever (I can't see them living together here! but doubt that one would be able to afford to buy out the other) so they might be able to get into a house at that point. But we hope to be here a long time and they will need homes in the meantime. There's always the possibility that we will need to sell it to pay for a nursing home, or decide that its too large/too much to keep up.

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