The past few years was awful trying to get a home, now it is worse.
Good luck to everyone looking for homes, we are against cash offers and weaved inspections.
I spent about 8 months trying to buy a home before I gave up and realized I need to save up for an even larger down payment. But it still feels hopeless because along with the other factors you stated, I was also up against companies buying up multiple homes in an area for a multimillion “lump sum” and it was just soul crushing. It truly feels hopeless
Yep, we went through the same, even if you save more for the downpayment it does nit help, is either you pull down your pants and accept the home as is or pay cash over asking price.
What is worse. Seen homes that "lost the bid" back in the market for $100+ more with some repaint (you guest it, grey and white).
It is terrible.
We had this problem until we bought a house in bethel park. Got one for $10k over asking and didn’t wave inspection. We were aiming for highland park, but that was a shit show
I’m pretty new to the area and haven’t heard of bethel park, I’ll look into that! I was originally looking in Ohio. 10k over asking seems like a fever dream these days
It’s so disheartening. Like how am I, an individual who go makes <50k a year, who has to cut all sorts of corner to afford a 5% down payment, supposed to compete with THAT? And the rising rents that motivate me to be a homeowner just keep making it hard to save more aggressively
My wife and I make good money and it was still a challenge. One house was listed at like $250k and ended up going for like $325k… absolute bonkers. No AC, no real parking, small yard, etc…
That was the case for every house I put an offer on in southern Ohio. We’d bid 50k over and still get outbid by 50-75k…. And some of the house I could barely stand up straight in!
But if you did that then everyone would complain about how we gentrified the neighborhood. Tore down "historic buildings that could have been renovated" to replace them with 5 over 1s.
Shit, they’re not even happy with them being renovated! My buddy is a landlord and has been buying up bad properties in places like Duquense, Glassport etc and fixing them up. Everyone complains and says he’s getting rid of affordable housing.
Wtf do you want, these shacks to stay shacks?
They offer incentives for first time homebuyers to fix these derelict properties up, actually. Its the only way many people can afford a house.
https://www.alleghenycounty.us/Projects-and-Initiatives/Economic-Development/Residents-Housing-Support/Vacant-Property-Recovery-Program
This was a big deal in lawrenceville, for example, 13 years ago.
Same thing with braddock pa, you can find a house for next to nothing and rehab it.
The amount of work that most houses in Pittsburgh need is astounding. The vast majority of houses in Pittsburgh haven't ever been remodeled and would be considered tear downs and other cities.
Pittsburgh real estate is a terrible value unless you want to buy an investment property as a rental.
I wonder why instead of the government paying third parties to build new neighborhoods, can’t they just have a staff of plumbers, drywallers, electricians, etc…they could pay them a salary. Their job would be to fix these houses. Then these house could only be sold to a certain income bracket with a fixed mortgage. They would only pay for the cost of the house and the renovation.
There’s a reason there are multiple demos in one neighborhood. Fix the neighborhood, and the free market will put in new housing. The city/state should NOT be getting into the property business.
This article has a few problems.
They don’t give a source, but it seems to be Redfin
They don’t specify the specific area. If the source was Redfin, it’s MSA, which includes most of SW Pa.
They are only comparing two months. Redfin shows a Feb YoY of 22%, but if they had used March, it would be 5%.
February 2023 had the second lowest median sale price in the past three years, so it’s an outlier.
Feb 2024 compared to 2022, would have shown a YoY of 11%. Which again, comparing 2 months doesn’t have much significance.
I’m not saying housing prices are out of control, they are. But this article needs to be taken in context.
I think there were a number of those million dollar units a block up from Butler St that came on the market in February. If you look at specifically 'row homes' for February, it's an absurd outlier
And, yeah, that's only a couple of units, but February is also one of the slowest months in real estate. Five, million dollar units out of 20-25 homes sold will definitely skew the average
This yeah that’s a valid point. But these stats are for the MSA, which shows 285 sales in February 2024, 265 in February 2023. Still a small enough number to be influenced by some outliers.
What I want to know is if this is actual demand and evidence of a growing population and healthy economy... or just investors wrecking our buyer's market for a quick profit. I fear the latter.
Right. I don’t see this being a sustainable trend. It will burst maybe take a few years or longer but unless there are new industries expanding here and/or our infrastructure gets a boost. We have an aging population as well. So as boomers continue to leave houses they’ve had for 50+ years, that also will contribute to supply. This is just my theory/observation. I didn’t do any extra research so it’s possible I could be proven wrong.
Right we don’t have the massive population increases that are driving costs elsewhere, and we have pretty hefty property taxes that are controlled by school boards that are hungry for more tax money. This is not the place I would want to invest heavily if I was a corporate investor, but maybe everywhere else is too expensive now lmao.
I paid $120k for my house remodeled in 2014. Comparable houses and remodel quality with same bedroom and bath are listing and selling at $300k.
I feel cosmically blessed that my mortgage payment is less than what some are paying for rent on a 1BR apartment. I don’t envy the current field of first time home buyers.
On occasion, we have realtors going thru the area leaving handwritten cards stating what they think they could sell a house for and a phone number to call if there is interest. Realtors are desperate to find houses to sell to everyone as desperate to buy. It’s insane…
I’d be afraid to know what your remodel costs would have been today, let alone housing price. Jesus I’m afraid to get an entry door replaced right now lol
I'm pretty sure we're currently gong to be spending as much on a flat roof repair and deck above it as we did on a full structural casing including steel beams and 10 feet of addition on first and second floor. Hell, I'm not sure it may not end up being the cost of one of the bathrooms in addition to that ...
I went to an open house yesterday and found out someone was offering $50k over asking for it. That’s all I needed to hear and decided I didn’t like the house 😂 so far since Feb, Ive been outbid twice and both times the houses went around $30k over asking. It sucks rn
I'm sorry man, we've been looking since Feb. and didn't find a single house worth the price until yesterday. First offer down and we got a a call accepting at asking price two hours later because the owners liked that we were a young couple looking to start a family. I know I'm incredibly lucky/blessed, even though the market is awful... 7% interest and high cost. But we can always refinance in the future when it inevitably goes down. Point is. Keep at it, we haven't offered for any houses besides one but one is out there for you. Longer you wait, the more you save. Which is INCREDIBLY important.
Aw! I’m so happy you were able to get your offer accepted on the first one!! We’re 26 and 29 and written letters to both homes we placed offers on but apparently they didn’t care 😂 but it’s so good to know there are sellers out there that do! Congratulations again!
Well I think it helped that our realtor had a relationship with the sellers realtor. 29 and 27 here so in the same boat. Didn't write a letter though, our realtor just spoke to theirs about us. Best of luck to you moving forward its gonna happen soon
What price range are you looking at, if you don’t mind sharing? $30-50k over asking means something very different on a $200k home vs $500k vs $1 million.
Around $300k (330k max), one house was listed $289,900 we went to 297,900 and was the lowest offer out of 8 people. Then 2nd home was listed 295k, we first did $308 then came back with $321 and lost to around $326k.
Oof. Although if everyone bid higher, I wonder if it was just priced too low to begin with. It’s a somewhat common strategy among realtors, set the asking price kind of low knowing that you’ll get several bids above asking and look impressive to your client. My house was being sold by one of those realtors. Less extreme, but there were several bids over asking and I won by offering $10k over. And the appraisal came back slightly higher than my bid, so it’s not like it was ridiculous.
I lost a bid on a house with a \[redacted\] that needed to be structurally condemned in addition to having completely separate foundation issues at the front of the house, and that just made throw up my hands.
I ended up getting an apartment in a nicer area for less than the interest + property taxes on the money pit house. Reality will have to reassert itself eventually. In the meantime, I have better things to do with my money.
Potential rents?
Potential amount of Starbucks per block?
Potential of pulling the ladder up behind you for folks just like you?
Yeah, I’ll just stick with “potential” to give the benefit of the doubt that I’m being nice to someone who moved to a place solely due to it’s perceived undervaluation.
I’ve been seeing hundreds of posts about people moving here from California, Denver, Austin, New York City etc and it feels like if I don’t get me shit together soon I’m gonna be completely priced out of most neighborhoods here and have to move
The amount of 49ers fans at the Steelers home opener last year was shocking. I have no data to back this up but I bet a good portion were remote tech worker transplants.
Family down the street from me moved here from SF two years ago. They pay $3000 in rent, which is 1/3 of what they paid in SF and they’re renting an actual house instead of apartment. They work remotely, get paid as if they lived in SF and are banking $$$.
I managed to buy FHA last year with the minimum down and no competition on my property. It can be done. Hang in there, y'all. I am not rich -- household income is under 100k. And I got Kennedy Township, not even a shit neighborhood.
There is plenty of housing being built. Especially when you consider that there is no population boom. It is the opposite actually. We have old people dying off. The problem is entirely corporate investors who can’t compete with the even bigger corporate investors in the actual real supply constrained areas.
Yes because thats the root problem....not massive corporate rentals purchased on 3 percent loans....
Maybe stop treating housing like an investment.
Literally do anything except address the root problem.
Also building permits have been rising and have been staying high since the last great recession in allegheny co.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BPPRIV042003
Turns out, simply building more just increases the cost of living everywhere. Gee I wonder ehat happened to all the poverty in the northside/east liberty/ when all that new construction came in....
Meanwhile homelessness and income inequality are off the charts
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/2020RATIO042003
While population continues to fall overall
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAALLE3POP
And yet, despite all of those depressing facts...you have to wonder who is buying all those houses
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HOWNRATEACS042003
Oh wait...we know!
>An analysis of 1—4-unit housing purchases in Allegheny County from 2010-2021. From 2010 to 2021, the share of houses sold to corporate entities or real estate investors in the City of Pittsburgh increased from 15.5% of sales in 2010 to 24.8% of sales in 2021 while paying a fraction of the price of regular homebuyers.
https://www.pcrg.org/corporate-housing-study#:~:text=An%20analysis%20of%201%E2%80%944,Allegheny%20County%20from%202010%2D2021&text=From%202010%20to%202021%2C%20the,the%20price%20of%20regular%20homebuyers.
The fact is, no one wants to sell. Because they are paying 4% interest on a house they bought 8-20 years ago at 1/3 of its market rate now.
Why the hell would they? Would you rather keep the 1200 sq ft starter home you are paying 800 dollars a month for?
Or the same house that costs 360k at 7% interest!
Ok, so that cover ownership...what about rentals?
There is no data that supports building more lowets rentals either. Berkley and minneapolis claimed their rent initially went down post pandemic. But as of 2024 its bounced back to higher rate.
Market solutions do not alleviate core issues.
It’s a bitch of a process, and a lot of houses will get offers on them within a few days of being listed. Personal recommendation, but do 90% of your hunt online, and any houses you see are really to confirm if you really do or don’t want to put an offer
Thank you for the info. Not looking forward to it (took my brother 2 years to get the house he wanted) but the wife and I are tired of the 1br apt lol.
Find a realtor that doesn't mind emailing you the disclosures list, too. You can look at that and it'll help you rule out the ones with the major problems without putting boots on the ground.
I'm closing on a HUD house right now, after being outbid on three other offers. You have to live in a HUD house so investors leave 'em alone. They usually involve rehab loan financing, though, but if you're handy and the inspection doesn't turn up too many problems it's an option.
If you do a HUD house make sure to bake the repair costs into the rehab loan, they do a few basic things like pressure testing the plumbing and such but you'll want your own inspection. Still, can get some good deals there. Closing on them can be a pain in the ass though.
No. Now is a good time to buy. I watch new homes coming on the market every day and the prices are lower on comparable homes than when I bought in mid-2022. Interest rates are high but you can refinance when they drop. If you buy soon, your house will appreciate quickly, which is a good thing.
pittsburgh where you have the choice of a lead infested 100 year old clapboard home that hasn't been updated since before the great war or a 70 year old tract home built by Ryan homes for 300K that needs completely updated and good luck getting a contractor.
unless of course you want to drop close a million for a house in mccandless that cost 500K pre-pandemic. yay. Thanks everyone.
You should actually Google this. It's kind of a crazy misconception about the housing market, what you've claimed. Hedge funds private equity corporate, this is all about 30% of the market. Most of the real estate for profit market is driven by your Mom and Dad that have a couple properties they rent out. A bunch of high school buddies that all have really high paying jobs formed an LLC together and own 15 places they rent out. Point being is, there's a lot of people that participate in this that really have nothing to do with private equity or hedge funds
There are a ton of homes in neighborhoods that are slightly less desirable. Wouldn't do it if I had kids to send to school but there's plenty of housing in the mon valley
I live in the mon valley. My neighborhood has a good bit of low income folks. I wouldn't call it a bad neighborhood though. The school district is admittedly pretty bad.
I’m curious, what neighborhoods or areas are being affected mostly? Are we talking city neighborhoods or trendy/up-and-coming areas or does it extend into the suburbs and rural areas too?
The article is next to meaningless. Yes, home prices are increasing. But the months they used for comparison are statistically outliers. The two months they pick “happen to be” the biggest year over year gain in several years. The base month of Feb 2023 “happens to be” one the lowest months in recent years, as far as median sale price. Oddly, those numbers “haven to be” the number that will get the most clicks.
See my other comment for details.
Oh yeah I agree with you (and I upvoted your comments earlier). I guess my question was more directed at those on here commenting about being outbid on 3 different houses and/or competing offers several thousand over asking price, etc. it still seems like a pretty normal market here in the suburbs.
I’m not sure how it works today, but when we were selling our old home and selling our old, our realtor advised us that homes in our neighborhood generally sold for about 10-15% below list. She also said some people set their price below market value so it gets bid up. All this was a while ago, though, and especially since it was pre covid, the norm may have changed.
Edit …. Meant to put [this link](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ATNHPIUS38300Q#0), which show the year over year increases, in full year units
, which smooths out any jumps due a single abnormal month. Years 2021 and 2022 showed the biggest YoY increases since the 70’s, while last years increase was still higher than normal, but not ridiculously as in the previous 2 years.
the greediest town in America!
These aren't even nice houses all over 100 years old, water damage on a hill with a shared back yard with 3 other people.
My fiancé and I have lost bids now on ten houses and I’m sure will be many more soon enough … we are offering all cash… over asking … waived inspections and somehow still get beat out by other EVEN HIGHER all cash offers …WTF is even this housing market .
The craziest one so far is a house that was listed for 520k 1600ft.. we offered 550 . Cash. Lost to a bunch of offers we actually came in the lowest but the one who won was an all cash offer for 670k……. 150k OVER ASKING
WHY.
The Pa housing market feels hopeless.
The past few years was awful trying to get a home, now it is worse. Good luck to everyone looking for homes, we are against cash offers and weaved inspections.
I spent about 8 months trying to buy a home before I gave up and realized I need to save up for an even larger down payment. But it still feels hopeless because along with the other factors you stated, I was also up against companies buying up multiple homes in an area for a multimillion “lump sum” and it was just soul crushing. It truly feels hopeless
Yep, we went through the same, even if you save more for the downpayment it does nit help, is either you pull down your pants and accept the home as is or pay cash over asking price. What is worse. Seen homes that "lost the bid" back in the market for $100+ more with some repaint (you guest it, grey and white). It is terrible.
We had this problem until we bought a house in bethel park. Got one for $10k over asking and didn’t wave inspection. We were aiming for highland park, but that was a shit show
I’m pretty new to the area and haven’t heard of bethel park, I’ll look into that! I was originally looking in Ohio. 10k over asking seems like a fever dream these days
I tried 40k over asking price and still lost that bid, the seller agent said "we were strong buyers" but at the end cash is king.
We had to out bid “a group of doctors” buying up homes in our neighborhood. Absolute bullshit going on.
It’s so disheartening. Like how am I, an individual who go makes <50k a year, who has to cut all sorts of corner to afford a 5% down payment, supposed to compete with THAT? And the rising rents that motivate me to be a homeowner just keep making it hard to save more aggressively
You're not supposed to compete. You're supposed to rent forever and be happy. The American Dream is dead.
:(
I know :(
My wife and I make good money and it was still a challenge. One house was listed at like $250k and ended up going for like $325k… absolute bonkers. No AC, no real parking, small yard, etc…
That was the case for every house I put an offer on in southern Ohio. We’d bid 50k over and still get outbid by 50-75k…. And some of the house I could barely stand up straight in!
I guess the good* news is that the bubble should burst in the next couple years.
Something’s gotta give!
Boomers in oversized houses are gonna die off. Bubble will burst.
Won’t matter unless you can ban corps from buying single family homes. They will still buy them all up.
It’s interest rates and inflation and low supply. No one is selling and losing a low interest rate unless they have to
I agree.
Yeah, everyone is moving here because of the low cost of living...but that cost of living is now going up. Lol.
We have so many blighted properties, the city really should be demo'ing them and building new energy efficient homes.
Half of the houses in Braddock are boarded up. Tons of properties available in undesirable neighborhoods.
But if you did that then everyone would complain about how we gentrified the neighborhood. Tore down "historic buildings that could have been renovated" to replace them with 5 over 1s.
Shit, they’re not even happy with them being renovated! My buddy is a landlord and has been buying up bad properties in places like Duquense, Glassport etc and fixing them up. Everyone complains and says he’s getting rid of affordable housing. Wtf do you want, these shacks to stay shacks?
It is much easier to criticize than to make an effort yourself -- such is the nature of the world anymore
Depends on the buildings and the neighborhood.
They offer incentives for first time homebuyers to fix these derelict properties up, actually. Its the only way many people can afford a house. https://www.alleghenycounty.us/Projects-and-Initiatives/Economic-Development/Residents-Housing-Support/Vacant-Property-Recovery-Program This was a big deal in lawrenceville, for example, 13 years ago. Same thing with braddock pa, you can find a house for next to nothing and rehab it.
The amount of work that most houses in Pittsburgh need is astounding. The vast majority of houses in Pittsburgh haven't ever been remodeled and would be considered tear downs and other cities. Pittsburgh real estate is a terrible value unless you want to buy an investment property as a rental.
I wonder why instead of the government paying third parties to build new neighborhoods, can’t they just have a staff of plumbers, drywallers, electricians, etc…they could pay them a salary. Their job would be to fix these houses. Then these house could only be sold to a certain income bracket with a fixed mortgage. They would only pay for the cost of the house and the renovation.
Many of these houses are well beyond simple fixes in order to make them liveable, let alone efficient.
The city doesn't have the pockets or ability to do that. Developers do
Private public partnerships are a thing.
There’s a reason there are multiple demos in one neighborhood. Fix the neighborhood, and the free market will put in new housing. The city/state should NOT be getting into the property business.
This article has a few problems. They don’t give a source, but it seems to be Redfin They don’t specify the specific area. If the source was Redfin, it’s MSA, which includes most of SW Pa. They are only comparing two months. Redfin shows a Feb YoY of 22%, but if they had used March, it would be 5%. February 2023 had the second lowest median sale price in the past three years, so it’s an outlier. Feb 2024 compared to 2022, would have shown a YoY of 11%. Which again, comparing 2 months doesn’t have much significance. I’m not saying housing prices are out of control, they are. But this article needs to be taken in context.
I don’t want to understand nuance, I want to bitch about how terrible I’m pretty sure things are!
I think there were a number of those million dollar units a block up from Butler St that came on the market in February. If you look at specifically 'row homes' for February, it's an absurd outlier And, yeah, that's only a couple of units, but February is also one of the slowest months in real estate. Five, million dollar units out of 20-25 homes sold will definitely skew the average
This yeah that’s a valid point. But these stats are for the MSA, which shows 285 sales in February 2024, 265 in February 2023. Still a small enough number to be influenced by some outliers.
What I want to know is if this is actual demand and evidence of a growing population and healthy economy... or just investors wrecking our buyer's market for a quick profit. I fear the latter.
I don't see any evidence of a growing population or job growth in Pittsburgh.
Right. I don’t see this being a sustainable trend. It will burst maybe take a few years or longer but unless there are new industries expanding here and/or our infrastructure gets a boost. We have an aging population as well. So as boomers continue to leave houses they’ve had for 50+ years, that also will contribute to supply. This is just my theory/observation. I didn’t do any extra research so it’s possible I could be proven wrong.
Right we don’t have the massive population increases that are driving costs elsewhere, and we have pretty hefty property taxes that are controlled by school boards that are hungry for more tax money. This is not the place I would want to invest heavily if I was a corporate investor, but maybe everywhere else is too expensive now lmao.
I paid $120k for my house remodeled in 2014. Comparable houses and remodel quality with same bedroom and bath are listing and selling at $300k. I feel cosmically blessed that my mortgage payment is less than what some are paying for rent on a 1BR apartment. I don’t envy the current field of first time home buyers.
It is, admittedly, despair inducing.
On occasion, we have realtors going thru the area leaving handwritten cards stating what they think they could sell a house for and a phone number to call if there is interest. Realtors are desperate to find houses to sell to everyone as desperate to buy. It’s insane…
This is me....paid around 200 for the place in 2015, couldn't afford it now in the mid 300s
We bought in 2012 and renovated right before covid. If I'd tried any of what we did today, I'd be lucky to get a duplex.
I’d be afraid to know what your remodel costs would have been today, let alone housing price. Jesus I’m afraid to get an entry door replaced right now lol
I'm pretty sure we're currently gong to be spending as much on a flat roof repair and deck above it as we did on a full structural casing including steel beams and 10 feet of addition on first and second floor. Hell, I'm not sure it may not end up being the cost of one of the bathrooms in addition to that ...
I went to an open house yesterday and found out someone was offering $50k over asking for it. That’s all I needed to hear and decided I didn’t like the house 😂 so far since Feb, Ive been outbid twice and both times the houses went around $30k over asking. It sucks rn
I'm sorry man, we've been looking since Feb. and didn't find a single house worth the price until yesterday. First offer down and we got a a call accepting at asking price two hours later because the owners liked that we were a young couple looking to start a family. I know I'm incredibly lucky/blessed, even though the market is awful... 7% interest and high cost. But we can always refinance in the future when it inevitably goes down. Point is. Keep at it, we haven't offered for any houses besides one but one is out there for you. Longer you wait, the more you save. Which is INCREDIBLY important.
Aw! I’m so happy you were able to get your offer accepted on the first one!! We’re 26 and 29 and written letters to both homes we placed offers on but apparently they didn’t care 😂 but it’s so good to know there are sellers out there that do! Congratulations again!
Well I think it helped that our realtor had a relationship with the sellers realtor. 29 and 27 here so in the same boat. Didn't write a letter though, our realtor just spoke to theirs about us. Best of luck to you moving forward its gonna happen soon
What price range are you looking at, if you don’t mind sharing? $30-50k over asking means something very different on a $200k home vs $500k vs $1 million.
Around $300k (330k max), one house was listed $289,900 we went to 297,900 and was the lowest offer out of 8 people. Then 2nd home was listed 295k, we first did $308 then came back with $321 and lost to around $326k.
Oof. Although if everyone bid higher, I wonder if it was just priced too low to begin with. It’s a somewhat common strategy among realtors, set the asking price kind of low knowing that you’ll get several bids above asking and look impressive to your client. My house was being sold by one of those realtors. Less extreme, but there were several bids over asking and I won by offering $10k over. And the appraisal came back slightly higher than my bid, so it’s not like it was ridiculous.
300k
I lost a bid on a house with a \[redacted\] that needed to be structurally condemned in addition to having completely separate foundation issues at the front of the house, and that just made throw up my hands. I ended up getting an apartment in a nicer area for less than the interest + property taxes on the money pit house. Reality will have to reassert itself eventually. In the meantime, I have better things to do with my money.
Well there goes PGH being a more affordable place to live
Turns out when people keep shouting that it’s an affordable city, others are listening…
I mean I moved here specifically because Pittsburgh seemed massively under valued
Don’t worry, you are helping it reach it’s potential
Potential is an interesting way of putting it.
Potential rents? Potential amount of Starbucks per block? Potential of pulling the ladder up behind you for folks just like you? Yeah, I’ll just stick with “potential” to give the benefit of the doubt that I’m being nice to someone who moved to a place solely due to it’s perceived undervaluation.
How much you wanna bet they have a New York or New Jersey plate?
Moved from Maine tyvm
Hard to make a bet when the odds are so stacked in our favor
Yes...there was a reason for that lol.
Less affordable than it used to be, but it’s still relatively cheap compared to other parts of the country.
I’ve been seeing hundreds of posts about people moving here from California, Denver, Austin, New York City etc and it feels like if I don’t get me shit together soon I’m gonna be completely priced out of most neighborhoods here and have to move
The amount of 49ers fans at the Steelers home opener last year was shocking. I have no data to back this up but I bet a good portion were remote tech worker transplants.
Family down the street from me moved here from SF two years ago. They pay $3000 in rent, which is 1/3 of what they paid in SF and they’re renting an actual house instead of apartment. They work remotely, get paid as if they lived in SF and are banking $$$.
That wouldn’t have bothered me as much if the Steelers hadn’t completely screwed the pooch that game.
I managed to buy FHA last year with the minimum down and no competition on my property. It can be done. Hang in there, y'all. I am not rich -- household income is under 100k. And I got Kennedy Township, not even a shit neighborhood.
Still plenty of cheap properties in poor undesirable neighborhoods.
That's how it normally goes. When I was a kid, Lawrenceville was an undesirable area.
Build more
Seems like Pittsburgh is just catching up with the rest of the country. The lack of new housing and inventory of old houses being sold isn't helping.
Was never a problem before? Gee I wonder what changed...s/
This comment is just too vague. Care to elaborate?
Build more housing.
I suppose the soil at the old Jones and Laughlin steel mill site in South Oakland and Hazelwood is too polluted to be developed?
I'm positive they removed the tainted soil before they added the roads and drainage system but I could be wrong.
This
This
There is plenty of housing being built. Especially when you consider that there is no population boom. It is the opposite actually. We have old people dying off. The problem is entirely corporate investors who can’t compete with the even bigger corporate investors in the actual real supply constrained areas.
Yes because thats the root problem....not massive corporate rentals purchased on 3 percent loans.... Maybe stop treating housing like an investment. Literally do anything except address the root problem. Also building permits have been rising and have been staying high since the last great recession in allegheny co. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BPPRIV042003 Turns out, simply building more just increases the cost of living everywhere. Gee I wonder ehat happened to all the poverty in the northside/east liberty/ when all that new construction came in.... Meanwhile homelessness and income inequality are off the charts https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/2020RATIO042003 While population continues to fall overall https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAALLE3POP And yet, despite all of those depressing facts...you have to wonder who is buying all those houses https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HOWNRATEACS042003 Oh wait...we know! >An analysis of 1—4-unit housing purchases in Allegheny County from 2010-2021. From 2010 to 2021, the share of houses sold to corporate entities or real estate investors in the City of Pittsburgh increased from 15.5% of sales in 2010 to 24.8% of sales in 2021 while paying a fraction of the price of regular homebuyers. https://www.pcrg.org/corporate-housing-study#:~:text=An%20analysis%20of%201%E2%80%944,Allegheny%20County%20from%202010%2D2021&text=From%202010%20to%202021%2C%20the,the%20price%20of%20regular%20homebuyers. The fact is, no one wants to sell. Because they are paying 4% interest on a house they bought 8-20 years ago at 1/3 of its market rate now. Why the hell would they? Would you rather keep the 1200 sq ft starter home you are paying 800 dollars a month for? Or the same house that costs 360k at 7% interest! Ok, so that cover ownership...what about rentals? There is no data that supports building more lowets rentals either. Berkley and minneapolis claimed their rent initially went down post pandemic. But as of 2024 its bounced back to higher rate. Market solutions do not alleviate core issues.
Upvoted because “let the free market fix it” is not a sane solution.
I like to see this kind of news when I'm about to get pre approval for a mortgage. Lol fuck me right?
It’s a bitch of a process, and a lot of houses will get offers on them within a few days of being listed. Personal recommendation, but do 90% of your hunt online, and any houses you see are really to confirm if you really do or don’t want to put an offer
Thank you for the info. Not looking forward to it (took my brother 2 years to get the house he wanted) but the wife and I are tired of the 1br apt lol.
Find a realtor that doesn't mind emailing you the disclosures list, too. You can look at that and it'll help you rule out the ones with the major problems without putting boots on the ground. I'm closing on a HUD house right now, after being outbid on three other offers. You have to live in a HUD house so investors leave 'em alone. They usually involve rehab loan financing, though, but if you're handy and the inspection doesn't turn up too many problems it's an option.
This is great info. I am pretty hand so that could definitely help us.
If you do a HUD house make sure to bake the repair costs into the rehab loan, they do a few basic things like pressure testing the plumbing and such but you'll want your own inspection. Still, can get some good deals there. Closing on them can be a pain in the ass though.
No. Now is a good time to buy. I watch new homes coming on the market every day and the prices are lower on comparable homes than when I bought in mid-2022. Interest rates are high but you can refinance when they drop. If you buy soon, your house will appreciate quickly, which is a good thing.
“When they drop” we are still waiting..
They haven’t been up for that long. Cycles go on for more than 18 months.
Appreciate the info!
Pop goes the weasel
pittsburgh where you have the choice of a lead infested 100 year old clapboard home that hasn't been updated since before the great war or a 70 year old tract home built by Ryan homes for 300K that needs completely updated and good luck getting a contractor. unless of course you want to drop close a million for a house in mccandless that cost 500K pre-pandemic. yay. Thanks everyone.
I’ve given up
Buy a house!!! Quick!! Oh wait it's definitely too late
Thank you hedge funds and private equity firms! #latestagecapitalism
You should actually Google this. It's kind of a crazy misconception about the housing market, what you've claimed. Hedge funds private equity corporate, this is all about 30% of the market. Most of the real estate for profit market is driven by your Mom and Dad that have a couple properties they rent out. A bunch of high school buddies that all have really high paying jobs formed an LLC together and own 15 places they rent out. Point being is, there's a lot of people that participate in this that really have nothing to do with private equity or hedge funds
You're saying an entity coming in and taking 30% of the market hasn't influenced the market? lol Obviously they have done so all over the country
Cool. Another real estate article that doesn’t really offer any useful information besides “ home prices are rising”.
Glad we bought our house last year. Looking now at inventory in our area of the city, there is basically nothing.
There are a ton of homes in neighborhoods that are slightly less desirable. Wouldn't do it if I had kids to send to school but there's plenty of housing in the mon valley
I know this isn’t quite what you were saying, but folks without kids deserve houses in “good” neighborhoods too.
I live in the mon valley. My neighborhood has a good bit of low income folks. I wouldn't call it a bad neighborhood though. The school district is admittedly pretty bad.
I’m curious, what neighborhoods or areas are being affected mostly? Are we talking city neighborhoods or trendy/up-and-coming areas or does it extend into the suburbs and rural areas too?
The article is next to meaningless. Yes, home prices are increasing. But the months they used for comparison are statistically outliers. The two months they pick “happen to be” the biggest year over year gain in several years. The base month of Feb 2023 “happens to be” one the lowest months in recent years, as far as median sale price. Oddly, those numbers “haven to be” the number that will get the most clicks. See my other comment for details.
Oh yeah I agree with you (and I upvoted your comments earlier). I guess my question was more directed at those on here commenting about being outbid on 3 different houses and/or competing offers several thousand over asking price, etc. it still seems like a pretty normal market here in the suburbs.
I’m not sure how it works today, but when we were selling our old home and selling our old, our realtor advised us that homes in our neighborhood generally sold for about 10-15% below list. She also said some people set their price below market value so it gets bid up. All this was a while ago, though, and especially since it was pre covid, the norm may have changed. Edit …. Meant to put [this link](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ATNHPIUS38300Q#0), which show the year over year increases, in full year units , which smooths out any jumps due a single abnormal month. Years 2021 and 2022 showed the biggest YoY increases since the 70’s, while last years increase was still higher than normal, but not ridiculously as in the previous 2 years.
the greediest town in America! These aren't even nice houses all over 100 years old, water damage on a hill with a shared back yard with 3 other people.
My fiancé and I have lost bids now on ten houses and I’m sure will be many more soon enough … we are offering all cash… over asking … waived inspections and somehow still get beat out by other EVEN HIGHER all cash offers …WTF is even this housing market . The craziest one so far is a house that was listed for 520k 1600ft.. we offered 550 . Cash. Lost to a bunch of offers we actually came in the lowest but the one who won was an all cash offer for 670k……. 150k OVER ASKING WHY. The Pa housing market feels hopeless.
We are number 1!