Foreclosure Ranch

Note added 02/22/2009: The BMIT blog has been shut down. I guess since the author finally bought a home he no longer had a reason to blog about the reasons not to buy a house. Too bad, I liked his blog.

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Seems that is the new nickname for the 4S Ranch community in San Diego. As Spring nears, I have resumed my search for a house. I have expanded my areas of interest to the 4S Ranch, where prices on homes built in the last few years seem to be falling. I stumbled upon a blog called Bubble Markets Inventory Tracking . It has very useful information about the housing market, and is especially harsh on all the "house flippers" out there who thought they'd get rich quickly by buying and selling quickly. After reading the posts about the 4S Ranch, it makes me want to wait longer to buy, because prices might still be falling.

Another useful web site I found is called SDLookup. Just enter an address of a San Diego property and it will show you the history of how much was paid and when for the home. I entered my address and sure enough, it showed how much I paid and when. Interestingly, it showed that my home was valued $20,000 more that what I paid. That is nice to know.

Using all this free online information (I love the Internet), combined with the site realtor.com, and someone like me is much more informed that the average buyer lets say ten years ago. I have found listings on realtor.com that don't include an address, but do list the selling realtor. So search for the realtor and then from that site search for the house and sometimes you can get the address. Enter that address into SDLookup.com and they you know how much the current owner paid. All very interesting stuff.

Since I change my mind constantly as to if I want to move and where I want to move to, it seems like I'm at a wait-and-see mode. I get the feeling that I'll know when it is time to buy and then the boxing-up of my belongings will begin - and I already have some of the boxes!