House Values

My husband and I are lucky. We bought our house in 2000, before the market peaked. We can afford our monthly payments, and both still have jobs, even though the employment scene in Michigan is dismal. Still, it's not a great time to be a homeowner.

Recent studies by the Ann Arbor Area Board of Realtors indicate that house values are down 15 percent on average across the county I live in. What's worse, in the specific school district my house is in, values are down about 47 percent. Ouch! In the short term, we're not worried. However, if one or both of us lost our job, we'd have to keep job hunting in stressed and depressed Michigan. We can't afford to sell the house right now or we woul'd take a major loss on it even though we are very tempted to sell rent back to gain some extra capital.

In news stories, local housing experts have said they expect 2009 to be about the same or a little worse than 2008, and then they predict the housing market will get a little better in 2010. I'm not in any rush to sell my house, but it's nice to have the option to relocate if I found a better job out of state. Maybe in 2010.
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Recent studies by the Ann Arbor Area Board of Realtors indicate that house values are down 15 percent on average across the county I live in. What's worse, in the specific school district my house is in, values are down about 47 percent. Ouch! In the short term, we're not worried. However, if one or both of us lost our job, we'd have to keep job hunting in stressed and depressed Michigan. We can't afford to sell the house right now or we woul'd take a major loss on it even though we are very tempted to sell rent back to gain some extra capital.