Yes, sort of, and it's possible. Usually the seller doesn't sue, but it can and does happen. As a preemptive buffer I had planned on offering him a months mortgage payment as an act of good faith and for keeping his house off the market for two weeks. He was upset (understandably) but he's a good dude and after speaking to him personally on the phone, we worked it out. Plus, he didn't really have the cash to sue me, and he was far and gone out of town, among other things.

Banks can and sometimes will file a deficiency judgement against the borrower if the foreclosed property makes less at a bank auction than what is owed on the loan of the original buyer, especially if the bank thinks you have the means to pay it. So if I owe $175,000 on a house but choose to strategically default, and the bank sells the house at auction for $90,000 they might file a a deficiency judgement for the $85,000 difference plus attorney fees, court costs, etc.

During the big bust a lot of real estate investors threw their hands up and walked away from their properties because they were worth far less than what they owed on them, so the banks try to recoup some losses and sue them, then the investors declare bankruptcy.

The bubble done pop!

I believe not owning a home is even worse.

Interesting, thanks!!

I agree with you that when you have a chance to get an apartment/house for same monthly expenses as being in rented apartment, it makes a sense to go for it. Right now I am still not in that situation (unless I want to live in worse part of town and much smaller), so instead of paying money to bank I save them for initial deposit. There is no sense in buying a property early if you burn your money on fees to a bank.

Fyi, the local situation is that property experts keep telling how there won't be any lower interest or lower prices for property. Well, a surprise, people still don't buy as they used to, so prices are very reluctantly go down.

I regret not buying a house sooner. In the early 00's the area I was looking to buy was just starting to be developed and before the bubble burst the area was very profitable. Not sure what it's like now, but I would be nearing having the house paid off with a 15 year loan. Although, to be fair at the time I was worried about my job contract...Now I sit here working with the same company and never having been laid off.

I don't think people are paying so much for the bunch of bricks. I think what is costing them the most is the land under the bricks.

Naturally it depends on the country and area, but it seems apparent that in this area where I am, the prices of bigger apartments have flatlined, and may be even coming down a bit overall (especially old townhouses needing some renovation work). But there still seems to be a big shortage of small apartments (for singles/divorcees, students, or old people who want to move to a smaller and cheaper apartment to get some extra money for retirement days), so the price of small apartments here seem to be still rising.

It is pretty tricky to make any real conclusions though just from the numbers. For example, there are now massive amounts of suburban apartments here built in late 60s, 70s or early 80s, which will need the big costly plumbing renovation in the coming years. It has been estimated the peak year for those renovations will be around 2020.

The asking price for such apartments comes crashing down when it becomes obvious such plumbing work is needed, as everyone seems to know it can mean anything between e.g. 40.000-90.000€ extra fee for one apartment, depending on various factors. So people already know to demand the price to be that much lower, if they intend to buy such aging apartment.

So I am expecting that even if all other factors here were the same (employment etc.), around 2020 or so the apartment prices on the average will have plummeted to the lowest here, as people who can't or don't want to pay for the renovation work want to sell the apartment ASAP, while the potential buyers demand discount for the coming renovation.

So by numbers it might seem buying an apartment had become cheaper around 2020 or so, while it really hasn't, as big part of the buying money will just be reserved for the plumbing renovation. The old apartments where the renovation is already done are in high demand now, of course. No problem selling those for a bit higher price, but the fact is that the one who owns the apartment when the decision of the plumbing renovation is finalized, will take the financial hit. The sellers are reluctant to lower the price until they can't escape the renovation anymore.

On Sunday I am actually going to look for one such older apartment where the housing company has decided proceed with the renovation in the coming years, so I can use it as leverage to lower the asking price, and there probably won't be many others interested (people prefer ready apartments where no big renovations are incoming).

One of the reasons I'm interested in it is that they still seem to be contemplating how to go on with it. The housing company (ie. everyone who owns an apartment) owns quite a big plot, most of which is unbuilt. So it is possible that instead of renovating the old apartment houses there, they may actually built new houses instead (ie. build one new house in the free area, the people from one old house move there and the old house is scrapped, on top of which another new house is built... repeat until all the old houses are scrapped and new ones are built.

And since there is lots of free room on the plot, the housing company might even get a license to build extra apartment houses, which they can sell to new owners (all old owners share the money). Some other housing company is trying the same approach, and they have calculated that this way it becomes cheaper for the current owners, than doing all the big renovations. And then they will have fully new apartments in brand-new houses, instead of old renovated ones.

Interesting. Good luck with the meeting.

Here sellers usually don't really consider offering significantly lower price for an apartment which is in desperate need of renovation. Let's say older apartment in good condition costs you $100.000. Older but with wooden window (higher cost for heating), old kitchen corner with equipment from commie era and toilet/ still built from drywall and so on, they ask for maybe $90 000 however investment is worth of $20 000-$25 000 and bank will lower your monthly payment for like $10 in the end.

In my opinion, the situation is unbalanced because property market is trying to look like it has infinite supply of products (let's say like Pepsi) but there is a finite number of lands (like with frequency spectrum).

Wow. That's cheap. I moved out of Toronto because my wife and I wanted a house before we started having kids and you can't buy a two bedroom condo in Toronto right now for under $350,000.

We moved north and our 3 bedroom 2 bath house cost us $250,000. But the housing market in Canada seems pretty overpriced no matter where you look.

We went to see a few more apartments on Sunday. There was one interesting apartment I had to check, as it seemed to be an exceptionally good deal all things considered. So I went to see it, I liked it quite a bit, I really liked the floor plan and it was overall pretty well located considering my work etc...

One big problem though, which I didn't realize until I drove there. My ex-wife lives on the same street in the next building. Awww shit, I guess that's that then. I guess that explains why the apartment is so cheap. :) I decided not to mention that little tidbit to my current SO.

Fortunately I saw a couple of other good candidates too, but they cost more and are pretty far away from e.g. my work (30km of driving to one direction in traffic jams, ie. 60-70km daily). Luckily they are close to a railway station, so using public transport is a possibility (1h 5min to work with those). I really liked the newer apartment which has its own sauna. That's a Finnish luxury specialty I guess, having your own sauna in your apartment.