View Full Version : Looking for a house and disheartened
We've had a retirement plan in place for quite a few years now. It involved selling our house and using the proceeds to purchase a small house in a lower cost of living locale. Seemed simple enough. Apparently, in the meantime, realtors have told us that many of those kind of smaller houses are being snatched up by investors or investor groups to be turned into rentals. This is happening across the US so not just the cities we are looking at. We are handicapped too because we would have to submit a contingent contract since our house has another few weeks before closing. No one is taking contingent contracts even though we would be paying cash. Being retired, I didn't want to take the very small risk of ending up with two mortgages. So...we decided to bank the money and rent for a while. Guess what - can't find a rental either. I have inquired of ten now within minutes of them showing up and told they already had backup applications. Staring to sweat because we have to be out of the house in a few weeks and will be homeless if something doesn't turn up. This is where that old trust thing comes into play but not liking this feeling of nowhere to go. I just had no idea the market for housing was so crowded.
I was just commenting to a friend that unless the market here (Portland/Seattle), I'm pretty much stuck. There's no inventory, and what inventory there is grows pricier by the day.
Could you rent a motor home for a few months? It would be cramped, but it would be a roof over your head--and with no lease, presumably. In some areas, the real estate situation is completely out of control. Are you looking in just one area?
Can you plan on not looking until after your house is sold and in the "gap" time do a short-term furnished rental in/close to your target cities? I agree with you about not risking having two mortgages, that's for sure, after my experience. Craigslist usually has a pretty robust set of listings under "Temporary/Sublet"
I agree with Catherine--you don't want to rush into anything as important as your next home
Teacher Terry
6-29-16, 6:01pm
RV rentals here are 200/day so probably not a good option. Wow that is awful news.
RV rentals here are 200/day so probably not a good option. Wow that is awful news.
Yikes--you can see I haven't done my homework! Glamping, anyone? :|(
I actually looked into renting an RV - $250 a day is what I was quoted. $78 a day for extended week hotels. A complicating factor is our pets. Pet deposits are now in the stratosphere. One place even wanted additional "rent" for each pet of $15 a day. Interestingly, rents here in our current neighborhood are $2000 and up. They end up getting rented by several different room-mates just to cover the costs. Worst case scenario we stay with the in-laws while we continue to look and end up resettling in a town of 30,000 on the other side of the mountain from where we wanted to go. Maybe small town life would be interesting for a while...certainly less crowded.
When we decided to move from the St. Louis area to south Florida, we weren't even sure where we wanted to live. We gave much of our furniture to our kids, family, and friends, and put the rest in storage.
When we closed on the house we rented a townhouse thru VRBO. Even after we picked out a house and paid for it we kept the condo for a month so we could have our new house painted and time to have our stuff shipped down.
Since it was the off season we paid less than our normal housing cost would be.
It is easier with no pets though, can someone else take care of them for a while.
Maybe just buy a camper/Rv and sell it later.
Teacher Terry
6-29-16, 6:57pm
Staying with the inlaws sounds like a good plan until you find what you want. It is too stressful for the pets to be separated from you. I know someone that did that and it did not turn out well. I would start looking for homes for sale in the ares you would like to be to see if they are affordable and if not I would look for a place that you like but you can afford. The only reason I knew what RV's cost is because my son rented one in Vegas to take his inlaws to the national parks.
freshstart
6-29-16, 7:35pm
nothing to add advice-wise just your situation sucks. Is backing out of selling your house a feasible option and just staying put?
I am hearing similar stories of young couples starting out who submit a bid on house only to find that about 8 others were submitted the same day and the vendor chose who sounded the most interesting. These are families who have sold their homes and are looking for another to move into. When interest rates are so low, it creates a bubble somewhere else and at present it seems to be in housing. Crazy!
You're very lucky you have relatives to move in with temporarily. That should give you some breathing room and allow you time to look at possible home towns.
Yes, they have an extra bedroom at least. They are in really bad health though so it won't be fun.
ApatheticNoMore
6-29-16, 9:42pm
there's places I'm hesitant to even apply for jobs, not merely because I couldn't afford a rental, but I'm afraid of being unable to get a rental period no matter what I pay. What good is a job with no place to live nearby?
Realtor where we are moving to just wrote and emphasized we should cancel our looking trip until we have cash in hand. Said the rental market is even tighter than sales market. Uggh!
Wow, when a realtor says that take notice. They always want buyers and sellers and to be that honest and turn people away means it is really a crisis.
Hard to fathom that with total price cash in hand only a few weeks away that we would be turned away. Had it up to here with realtors anyway. At least we sold the house without hiring one.
SteveinMN
6-30-16, 10:34am
Hard to fathom that with total price cash in hand only a few weeks away that we would be turned away.
Could you get a bridge loan secured by your house closing (particularly from your mortgage lender)? That would give you the cash in hand now. Yes, there is a risk that your closing falls through. But loan repayments on the bridge until your house is sold and closed could be less than the cost of a hotel/RV/apartment/whatever.
We considered a bridge loan but financing costs for just a matter of weeks made no sense. So now it is a matter of two choices:
Kill the dream of retiring to the mountains and purchase a home in a smaller town near here or submit a contract on a house in dream city and see what happens (without said realtor). Of course, the beauty of the first plan is that it takes all the stress out of the unknown. We would be settled in a paid for house, pets happy, elderly in-laws happy that we didn't move away...but...this is not a simple life decision.
iris lilies
6-30-16, 2:09pm
Are you looking for a house r fe an apartment to rent?
If the real estate marketbis that hot, I would probably re-think locating there.
I like Las Cruces for a laid back, low cost for real estate place. I keep a close eye on 2 br/2b condos and they can be as low as $85,000 and they are really cute. Granted, I Dont know how cnvenient or great the neghborhood is for these places at this prices but they ok to me generally.
gimmethesimplelife
7-2-16, 4:49pm
Are you looking for a house r fe an apartment to rent?
If the real estate marketbis that hot, I would probably re-think locating there.
I like Las Cruces for a laid back, low cost for real estate place. I keep a close eye on 2 br/2b condos and they can be as low as $85,000 and they are really cute. Granted, I Dont know how cnvenient or great the neghborhood is for these places at this prices but they ok to me generally.I looked into Las Cruces too at one point and overall, it's not a bad place for inexpensive living provided you can keep your costs and overhead low. Nice climate, too, with a little bit of winter and not quite the heat extremes of Phoenix. Rob
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