Housing

It’s interesting to watch the housing market around here. I doubt we’ll move from our apartment before next summer — there’s just so many variables in having a baby I don’t know how to quantify, that I figure it would be best to stay put. But I’ve been keeping an eye on the public part of the multi-list system looking at what homes are available, just in case a gem appears in the lower price ranges. (And I may go investigate a pre-approval, just to see what our options are, but I digress…)

Right now it looks nearly impossible to get a livable house in town for under $100,000. And any houses around the $100,000 mark seem to be a gamble — they generally need some sort of work, but it’s a crapshoot as to what kind or how serious. Living outside of Morgantown instantly lowers the cost of the home, sometimes by half.

I found two cute looking houses in the last three months that were under $100,000, and near enough to be of interest to us. One was a little over 10 miles out of town, and one was near downtown in the heart of what is mostly a rental district. The first never made it past the drive-by stage: the surrounding neighborhood was run-down, littered with trash (piles of trash), and didn’t feel safe, though that last is probably not true–it just wasn’t a nice enough area to justify the drive, especially with gas prices as they are. The second looked great from the outside, so we asked to see it. The inside was really rough — holes in the walls, floors that needed work, animal smell (several dogs living there). And even with all that, I think we would have considered the possibility of making a considerably lower offer (based on the positives of the location near downtown and the attractive exterior) except that the layout was so very poor that it didn’t seem worth the work it would need. (And the smell seemed to linger on me after the visit — unpleasant. The poor animals.)

And even if we were to find a house around $100,000 that met all of our requirements, that’s a scary commitment. With the housing market in the mess it’s in, will houses maintain their heightened value in this area? Or will they drop down, back to where prices were, heck, only about 10 years ago? I’m sure that the student interest in this area has kept some of the prices going up — will that continue? Or will we have finally gotten to the point that student housing exceeds student demand?

With the fluctuating economy and housing situations, it’s a confusing time to look at houses. :)

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Published:
06.26.08 / 7pm
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