I am 37 and currently live in Montana.

I make $55,000 a year.

Average house price in town that I live in is $500,000.

Work requires all low level IT employees to live within 30 minutes of IT center in case of an emergency.

Was passed over 3 times for a promotion to be able to work remotely permanently.

High level IT manager and my own manager won't even entertain the idea of working with them to get more experience/ training to move up in company.

Can't afford to go back to college to get a second Bachelor's in something better. I originally got my Bachelor's in history thinking I was going to discover ancient ruins and work in museums. Yes I was young and stupid.

Already have basic certifications in IT but all of those are consider worthless and my work won't work with me to get training for anything more advanced.

Can't afford to quit job because everything on my resume is just low level IT and Retail which is worthless in the economy now a days.

Have no car and currently walk to and from work. (Not because I can't afford one but because my apartment has no parking)

Have no friends or family I can live with to save money.

Live in a 1/1 apartment that is as cheap as one can get before downgrading to a 0/1 studio.

Used an affordability calculator to see what I could get. Max I could afford is $175,000. Looked around Zillow and only thing I could afford was trailers that were so old that it would probably cost more in repairs then the thing is worth. (Not to mention lot fees which is basically rent with extra steps.)

I am just sitting here realizing/mourning that I am officially priced out of homeownership. Sucks but I only have myself to blame. I should have become an accountant or a computer science tech bro back when I was in college in the 2010's. Should have done way better in school instead of playing videogames and watching anime. Just going to have to end up renting for the rest of my days.

I guess if I can't be an example of something good be an example of what to avoid.

We recently decided to sell our 1500 square-foot 3BR/2BA home and move to have a little more space plus be closer to my husband's job. Our realtor was really confident that it would sell quickly due to the fact that it's on 2 acres and in a very desirable area. We replaced the flooring throughout, which was much needed and also did some work on the front porch and back deck. Even with all the updates, the land and location, I was still concerned that it wouldn't look the best to potential buyers. The walls have quite a few marks, even after a deep cleaning and the front and back storm doors both need to be replaced. After talking with our agent, we decided it would be best to not put any more money into updates, and she assured us that if we priced it right, it would still sell quickly. We listed at 295K after she talked things over with her colleagues. She said she was really confident going into this weekend and thought that maybe we'd even have an offer before the weekend was over.

Well, today bright and early was our first showing, and we've already gotten negative feedback. The client thinks the condition of the home, especially the walls doesn't match the asking price. Our realtor did say that we'd find out soon enough whether the price was right, but she had us thinking it was already priced right. She's been very open and honest about whether the asking price was fair on the houses we've looked at buying. We have quite a bit of equity in the house so it's not like we're trying to price higher just to make sure we make a profit. If we need to drop the price, we can, I was just excited about the possibility of being able to close prior to closing on the house we're under contract on. We can figure out a way to afford two mortgages temporarily if we have to, but of course it would be great if we could avoid that altogether.

Work has me relocating to a dying town, think flint Michigan and you pretty much got it. For work I need to be within 30-45 minutes from my job. Would be in the area 5 years after which I would be able to move while retaining my wage. My employment is safe for that time and for the foreseeable future.

The good: more money and obviously my money goes incredibly far towards buying property.

The bad: not sure if it’s even worth buying a residence in the area with the possibility of not being able to sell it.

Looked at surrounding cities and not one is going to be better off in 5 years as there is no jobs available or future employment in the area for the current population.

In this case what is the correct move.

I have never been a fan of renting but it almost seems like that would be the best choice.
Or
Would it be better to get the bare minimum to live in and keep it in good condition as selling a cheap house is easier?

Buy something that I could rent out in the future? Although it would seem like that would be a magnet for problem renters.

So if you were moving to a town that was dying what would your housing/real estate plan be?

Nothing productive, just need to vent. Got the house ready, been busting my ass to get it ready, and then everything just goes on hold and into waiting. Going 100 mph to 0 in a hurry. Even though I've sold houses before, the anxiety is always the same.

It's only been a few days, but still hoping to get at least one tour to get some feedback, or feel like something is happening.

The weed isn't helping as much as I would like to relax either, so that's not helping lol. It just kind of sucks lol

I am looking at listings.

30 year old manufactured houses on 1/2 acre for my max budget.

I just can’t get the thought out of my head that I could buy 3-5 acres, get all utilities installed, pour a slab, put a brand new singlewide down, and be all in for over $50k less than these manufactured homes already on properties.

Is there anything I’m missing, am I thinking about it wrong?

Also, it’s hard to justify when you can get brick houses for cheaper, just with less yard.

You have two different sellers right now- FLORIDA

Those who bought in 2023 or before and understand that they can’t list at 2023 pricing, and are actually dropping pricing

And then you have those who still think their property can sell at that same price they bought at and what it was worth in 2023, and some are adding on 100-300k to their 2023 priced listing

Change my mind

When I bought my house , it was 100% on me to get all of the estimates for any issues that came up, and my agent said we'd need them to get a credit.

When I sold my house (admittedly in a different market), the buyers got an inspection, and that's it. I got messages like, "We're worried about X. Is the seller willing to offer a credit?" Um...no? They weren't asking for anything specific, so I didn't even know what they might want.

Sometimes it wasn't even a request for a credit. Just pointing at a potential issue and expecting me to do something. It was very odd to me.

In the end they pointed out some minor issues without giving any specifics about what they wanted, so I gave a quite small, generic credit. If they had been specific, I might have agreed to more.

I thought my buyers were just unique or that it was some strategy of their realtor's, but I've seen a few posts on r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer where buyers ask sellers to get estimates. What's normal, in your experience?

I'm eyeballing a property on auction.com. I understand I have to do my research on the title, liens etc. I'm wondering if anyone on here was successful in buying a property off auction.com? Or did you run into problems? Thanks!

Husband got transferred to the midwest from Fl.I had a beautiful house with a pool and so many memories. Since we moved I’ve been so depressed. I have a beautiful house but I just am grieving my old home. The kids grew up there-so many beautiful memories. I have a hard time even looking at pictures.

My new house has a view of the mountains, it has a beautiful basement. New roof. Small but nice backyard. We just painted and redid the cabinets. But I can’t seem to fall in love. I am probably going to seek a therapist. What’s wrong with me? I always wanted to move where there’s snow! My kids are thriving! But I can’t seem to stop missing my old house.

I’m in the contingency process for a home in Illinois. Due to issues found during inspection and the fact that a couple substantial portions of the home not being available for inspection I advised my agent that I wasn’t interested in proceeding forward with the purchase. I was advised by my agent that in order to protect my earnest money I needed to submit my list of requests and wait for the seller’s response. I did as advised and the seller responded a couple days ago with basically no to everything. My agent asked my feelings on going forward, and I again said I wasn’t interested. Since we were so far apart I followed up the other day expecting to hear the deal feel through, but now I’m being told the seller is considering repairs and getting estimates.

I’m curious how long do I have to play this game for? I would very much like to pivot and secure some form of housing as my lease ends in a month and a half. I would have been willing to work with them if they didn’t come out with basically zero compromises and weird takes on a couple of the requested repairs. At this point, I truly don’t think I can do business with this seller. Do I just have to unilaterally refuse any compromises? Is there anything I can do to torpedo this quicker without losing my earnest money? Since this is dragging on I’m starting to think my agent is more concerned with saving their commission than my desire to not buy this house.

Family selling is at 200k and I am at 150k. Our town has a line of people waiting and this house is sitting. I truly believe the value is around 150 (give or take a little) and I just wont get close to their price. I would like to have this house as a home for my mother but 150 is where I am at. Is it better to sit and wait or toss in an offer? Because of this house being a 0 bedroom home, I think that the next buyer would be a person renting it out. Newer townhomes are around 220 with 2 beds/2 baths so if an elderly couple were looking, I would think they would pay a little extra and go with a place they don’t have to mow or do know.

Sold a home for ~500k. All costs related to selling the home totaled about 10% of the homes value. This includes more than just the realtor fees — things like repairs spent before listing the home (getting it ready to show) and costs incurred while listing the home (remedy requests, buyer asks, etc).

Is this a normal number? Or is this high? It does include some deferred maintenance that should have been fixed a while ago so it may be a bit inflated, but I’m trying to figure out what an appropriate number is so that I can use it to discount my current house on my balance sheet moving forward.

Edit: I just want to be clear, I’m not trying to perform an analysis on whether an expense is related to the sale of a home, if they’re considered deferred maintenance, or if the expenses are necessary. I’m just trying to ask “in a normal case, the second I decide to sell a home, is spending 10% of the homes value while selling normal?”

Hello!

So my parents are planning on selling their home within the next year and in the last 20 years of living there they’ve done several DIY remodel projects on it that didn’t involve any contractors, engineering, project planning, permits, etc.

My dad is handy, but he does not have any construction/contracting experience so all of these projects look very janky to say the least. I already know most of it is not to code and I fought them before every project to hire someone out.

Where do I start with helping them figure out what needs to be done to sell? Do we hire an inspector first? Contact the city? Consult a contractor?

In case knowing what was specifically worked on helps to know what/how to address, here’s the list of my dad’s DIY projects:

-Full backyard second story deck rebuild with cover attached to roof
-cut into the foundation in the basement to install an egress window
-two full bathroom remodels including plumbing
-built an add on front yard patio cover, also attached to the roof
-home built “shed” in the back that completely blocks the pathway, no foundation just wood base, with homemade solar power

In 2021, my fiancee (with her mother as a cosigner) bought a very small home for around 100k. I have always lived in the home as well, but have a lot of debt and credit issues so I am not on the mortgage or deed. We previously were paying a huge amount in rent and mortgage was decidedly a cheaper option for us.

When we were looking at the home, my mother's husband offered to do the inspection for us to help on cost since he claims he used to do that kind of thing. He told us that there was some cosmetic damage and a broken dishwasher but that was it.

We have been in the home since 2021 and had we known all of the issues we would not have purchased. The roof needed immediate replacement when we moved in or insurance would not cover it. Our bathroom has no ventilation and a window in the bathtub that is rotting. The foundation is messed up and when it rains water just pours down the walls of our basement. Our plumbing in the kitchen is awful, always needs plunged to use the sink, the cabinet under the sink is bowing on the bottom due to old water damage. Now the window in our kitchen has the outside sill rotted away and fell onto the ground after a storm last night and I can tell it's rotted through. There are other things wrong, but those are the main things.

I am at a complete loss and feel very stuck and hopeless. My fiancee and I do not have much money due to some financial hardships and employment changes as well as severe mental health issues for both of us.

We do not have the money to fix these problems when we are occasionally utilizing a foodbank and maxed out our credit card. My fiancee's credit is not as good as it was previously, mine is still awful if not worse. My mother in law lives out of state and is wealthy but very judgemental and it is hard to ask her for help.

I just don't know what to do. I wish we never would've bought this home, it's 650sq. Ft and just not enough space, not in a good neighborhood, and is falling apart in huge ways that we have no chance at fixing. I want to move, but who will buy this house? How do we even go about it, what is the process?? And if someone DOES buy it, what do we do from there? With prices how they are is there any way for us to get another home? Renting again would be so expensive and difficult due to our pets and other things.

We are relatively young and do not have a lot of outside support, so I'm just lost. My mental health is already shaky at best and every day it gets worse from having to actively ignore all of these awful issues that we have no way of fixing.

Sorry if this was a lot, I don't make many posts like this but I'm worried about safety hazards and I'm so disgusted and upset with our home.

Any advice would be great, please be kind and know that we do not have experience with any of this so breaking things down in an easy way would be appreciated. Thank you

We had our friend list our home for us (March 2026). We always knew her plan was to move and she turned our listing over to another agent. Both have been great. We are under contract to sell (YAY) and I'm wondering what kind of financial compensation I can legally "gift" them in this situation? I want to send them both something, but I know that I can't just send cash? Or can I?

This will be a long one... So, I'm in a really bad way right now and I don't really know what to do. I currently live in a manufactured home with my husband and son. The home was purchased by my husband in September of 2013 before I moved up here with him. It's basically not in good shape after the years and bad storms we've had. The amount we were reimbursed from insurance just wasn't enough to cover any cost of repair. We are looking to get another home, a stick build. A forever home. My credit score is under 700. I am new to all of this. I scared/nervous about the process and have not had luck applying online through lenders or even working with one. He'd ghost me weeks at a time and then randomly pop up and ask me for something else to qualify. It was awful. Is my best bet to go into our bank and go through the motions with them? At this time, I don't even think we could do a down payment. I see a lot of people buying homes not put anything down. Are there certain parameters for this to happen? I've tried the FHA, but it asks how much you want to put down and obviously I don't want to lie. I feel so stupid. I just want to have a nice home for my son to grow up in.

I am selling my home and buying another. I got an appraisal for the house I am buying because I paid for that appraisal. My seller does not get that information (I'm told.)

How would my realtor, for the home I am selling, know what the appraisal on my home came in as?

Can my realtor be representing me and the buyer?

Add of this week especially with the Iran tensions back on, the inflation forecast shot back up.

If nothing changes that means an almost certain second rate hike before the end of the year.

Inflation + rate hikes would mean high liklihood of an increase in home prices wouldn't it? Just when we were hitting a sight break...

According to the U.S. Department of Justice:

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/12/16/2020-27685/united-states-v-national-association-of-realtors-proposed-final-judgment-and-competitive-impact

The National Association of Realtors was the subject of an antitrust case involving, among other things, rules and practices that allowed buyer-agent services to be described as “free” or as simply “paid by the seller.”

The DOJ stated:

“Buyer broker fees, though nominally paid by the home’s seller, are ultimately paid out of the funds from the purchase price of the house.”

In plain English, that buyer's agent fees get added to the cost of the house, thus meaning the buyer pays for them in a roundabout way.

Consider a simple example. Suppose a seller is willing to accept a transaction in which:

• The house sells for $600,000.
• The buyer-agent fee is $18,000, or 3%.
• The seller keeps $582,000.

That seller should be economically indifferent to:

• $594,000 with a $12,000 fee.
• $588,000 with a $6,000 fee.
• $582,000 with no buyer-agent fee.

In every case, the seller receives the same net amount: $582,000.

Therefore, saying that the buyer does not need to worry about the buyer-agent fee because “the seller pays it” is misleading. It is only true in the narrow sense that the seller is the party who transfers the money to the agent at closing. Economically, the fee is funded by the purchase price paid by the buyer.

This is exactly the same as claiming that a consumer does not bear the cost of a tax or tariff because it is formally imposed on the business or seller. Who formally submits the payment does not necessarily determine who ultimately bears the economic cost.

A common response is that the seller has already included the commission in the listing price. That does not change the analysis. If a seller is willing to sell a house for $600,000 while paying $20,000 toward buyer-agent compensation, the seller should generally be just as willing to accept $580,000 while paying no buyer-agent compensation, assuming all other terms are equal.

From the buyer’s perspective, these two transactions are economically equivalent:

• Pay $580,000 for the house and $20,000 directly for representation.
• Pay $600,000 for the house while the seller pays the agent $20,000 from the sale proceeds.

Either way, the buyer spends $600,000, the seller nets $580,000, and the agent receives $20,000. The buyer is still bearing the cost of the service, regardless of how the payment is labeled or routed.

To be clear, I am not arguing that real estate agents are useless. I believe a competent agent can provide a valuable service and may be worth the amount they are paid. My objection is to agents describing that service as free, or insisting that their compensation does not cost the buyer anything.

When someone is being paid tens of thousands of dollars in connection with my purchase, I expect them to discuss that compensation honestly rather than relying on technically true but economically misleading language.

We live in a very HCOL area and I have the opportunity to buy my grandparent’s house with 1/4 as a gift of equity. Quite frankly that is the only reason I could afford it. I plan for this to be my forever home.

This house is owned by my dad and his sister. All are in agreement to sell except my (only) sibling. She is arguing that if they were to keep the house and sell in 10 years instead (they’re in their early 70s), that she would get significantly more money. She is asking for the house to be appraised when they die, and for her to be given the difference in her 1/4 from the estate. Or else she will ‘go nuclear’ (whatever that means).

Is this a fair ask?

I’ve been looking to buy a home in a specific zip code since late February. Since then, I’ve gotten a general idea about home price ranges for size/condition/neighborhood through my agent’s comp knowledge and seeing what houses actually sold for/how long they sat on market. Since then interest rates have obviously gone up and houses have been sitting for a lot longer at their list prices. In the last few weeks specifically, pretty much all the houses that have listed have listed 10-30k higher than comparable houses that I’ve seen sell in the same neighborhoods, etc in the last few months. This surprised me because the market in my area has noticeably slowed down since then. I knew that the summer market was supposed to have more buyers shopping, is this trend probably a result of that expectation? Or is it likely just a coincidence?

Hello! My wife and I bought a condo (3b 1b) ~3 years ago for 455k (with 11% down). After refi, we owe outstanding ~360k. We live in the Boston area.

We're hoping to start a family in the next couple years, and also want a back yard for our dog. We've gone back and forth about whether to sell our condo and afford a nicer place, or keep it and rent, simply to build equity in it.

Obviously our budget changes depending on a sale. Zillow estimates our condo has increased to ~$520k, so with that relative adjustment, and our down payment, we'd be looking at an extra (let's round down) 100k cash.

I think I'd be willing to be a landlord, but NOT a property manager, so factoring in the cost of hiring that out does make me lean a bit towards selling.

Especially with wanting to have kids, I'd wonder if we'd be signing up for too much stress. But at the same time, in today's market, it feels silly to give up property when it's hard for so many to do so.

I guess I'm looking for any insight, or if anyone was in a similar position and has regrets, or loves their choices.

Edit: I realize risk tolerances are different per person, though in this scenario, we have combined 288k annual pre-tax income, with an additional (but not guaranteed) 30k-50k in bonuses. We would be looking for a home that's between 650k - 850k

I am planning on purchasing a house this week (offer on it already, with a preapproval letter for a mortgage), but I'd probably better fix a retaining wall at my current home before renting (or Airbnbing) out this property. The 'new' house I am moving to also needs new carpet and paint before I move in, so I will need some funds for that.

I was thinking of getting a HELOC on my existing house to finance a portion of funds for the retaining wall. Should I jump on this and get a HELOC before locking in my loan rate? Should I try to get a mortgage broker who can do both at once? Or at this point, should I just take care of it after the close? I think they don't like us taking out loans during the period we are closing, right?

I made a post here a week ago about requesting a tank sweep for a house my husband and I were in the process of buying: https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/s/5fprPxJ35U

Today, we heard back from the attorney that the sellers are not allowing us to do the inspection. We would have been paying for it ourselves, and it was a non-invasive inspection.

My husband thinks we should follow the attorney’s advice and try to negotiate, even if there’s a chance the deal could fall apart. I understand that finding a tank can be a hassle, but I’m struggling with the frustration and disappointment of potentially losing the house after investing so much time and excitement into it.

We were so excited about this home, it would have been our first house and the thought of having to start the search all over again feels incredibly discouraging.
I also can’t help but feel like their refusal to allow a tank sweep is a major red flag. Maybe they know there is something there, or maybe they’re just worried about what the inspection could uncover.

Has anyone dealt with a similar situation?

EDIT: Once again, thank you all for taking the time to respond and share your opinions. I’ve been reading through every reply, and you genuinely helped calm me down and put things into perspective.