It’s not really there, you know:

[jrittenhouse]

During all of the thrash over the refinancing, it was interesting to revisit the ‘value’ of the house in the market:

Comments

[debgeisler]

Of course, that’s all total smoke and mirrors; if we HAD sold at the top of the market, then - where do you live then?

I feel your pain. Our house has also dropped about the same ($100K) from its peak Zillow valuation in 2006ish. On the other hand, when we bought in 1998, we thought we *were* buying at the top of the market (we'd bought our first house when prices had been at a cyclic high in 1988).

[kalimac]

If you had sold at the top of the market, it wouldn't have been the top of the market. The prices would have kept going up, instead of dropping as they did in our world. That is a law of the universe. I could stop the stock market fall right now by selling all I have.

[jrittenhouse]

I start speeding, and I attract every cop in miles. I tried investing in the stock market once, and lost everything. You mean like that?

[kalimac]

Exactly like that.

[jrittenhouse]

Yep. That's part of the whole issue for us as well. A long time ago, I realized that I'm smart in some areas, and dumb as a post in others, and that I didn't have the innate talents necessary to raise my ability to improve them. (You can't easily work in watercolor landscape painting, say, if you're a blind quadraplegic.)

[mbcrui]

We accidentally sold our house when it was worth about 100k more than we paid for it. It's back down to near what we paid in the first place. We then made a horrible investment decision (if we were thinking investment) and bought a house in a very depressed area where we're never going to be able to sell it... and put about double what we paid into fixing it up.

Oh well. We have a nice,big, old house with a great kitchen and a new, fuel efficient furnace, water heater and a roof that isn't coming down anytime in the near future. If nothing else, we'll retire here.

[jrittenhouse]

Try this one:
[my old house in Milwaukee]

[robin_june]

I had to Zillow my own house to answer my question about the differences between the dark green and the light green lines: dark is the single house in question (n = 1) and light is the entire zip code (n = many). Your current house seems to be running slightly above zipcode. I'd guess that's a good thing for a house you aim to hold on to and actually use for a (gasp! who'd' thunk it?) residence!

In my house's extraordinary case, I've always thought Zillow.com was crunching imaginary numbers, in order to get the heights it's reported. It was built as a 1-room schoolhouse in 1880, and has been owned by our church since the early 20th century. How it could be worth one and a third of a hundred thousand makes no sense to me.

[marklafon]

I am having a fun time dealing with my sister about our parent's house on the lake in SC. She is set on selling it at what she thinks it is worth. I keep telling her that, when all is said and done, it is worth what someone is willing to pay and can get a loan for. She simply can not grasp that value and price are separate things, especially in real estate.

I am sure that it will sell for far more than they spent on building it BUT it will sell for less than my sister insists that it is worth. And it will not sell this year. Nothing in that area is selling now.

[robin_june]

Can you (collectively as an extended family) afford to not sell it quickly?

[marklafon]

We can afford to hold onto it. Only some upkeep and taxes, no mortgage to worry about. Besides, since nobody is buying we have no choice. If you want to buy a house in the middle of SC let me know. And I have a cousin with a haunted mansion atop a mountain in WV. We had hopes that this Stevie King fellow would like a summer home but he found it too creepy.

[jrittenhouse]

I understand; something like that happened when my dad died and my half-sister tried to sell her part of the real estate at the inflated figure that my dad thought it was worth.