| ideas than you might assume:
1. selling then renting new housing
2. selling then buying more modestly priced housing
3. selling then moving to a less expensive market
1. Selling then Renting New Housing
Have you checked what rents are like in your community? According to a recent New York Times article, in the most price-inflated housing markets-most prominently, the Bay Area of California, Boston, New York City, and Miami- renting is now an indisputably better deal, at least in the immediate future. When you add to the cost of buying a house such "hidden" costs as property taxes, interest on a mortgage, real estate transaction costs, and maintenance, owning can easily cost twice as much as renting.
In terms of investment value, housing prices would have to rise far faster than they are rising now for buying a home in an overheated market to be anything but a money-loser for about the next ten years, and possibly far longer. Given that buyers are now stretching themselves thin to buy homes in the current market, you have to ask: who will be left to buy homes if prices actually do double? In the long term, San Francisco, Boston, and Manhattan may compete directly with Hong Kong, London, and other highly desirable cities in a virtually limitless price war. For now, there aren't enough multi-millionaires in any of these cities |
