Open House Observations

I went to two open houses today in the Belmar area. Both houses were similar in that they were small, non-descript, summer vacation type 2 bedroom bungalows that were probably worth $150,000 each, at best, only 3 or 4 years ago. The asking prices for both houses were in the $400,000 to $450,000 range.

I was mostly interested in the broker comments than the actual houses and found the divergent opinions interesting. One broker gave the usual spiel that it was important to buy now before prices go up in the spring. The other broker was much more realistic and suggested that the owner of the house she was trying to sell missed the peak and that the owner might have been able to get his asking price last summer. This broker also attributed the run up in prices in the Belmar area to "funny money financing."

Only one house had a sign in sheet and the sheet had only about 4 names on it at about 3:00. I asked the brokers who was looking at the house and the broker indicated that many of the lookers were nosy neighbors, which suggests real buyer interest is limited. In any event, I hope to post more observations later.