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Home prices in Chelmsford (like everywhere else) have gone absolutely bananas. 2 Years go we would have been able to afford a nice house in the town. Our budget now is really scraping the bottom of the barrel now, anything that comes on below 550 is bait for a bidding war or huge structural issues.
Urban Peasant,
My thoughts exactly about Chelmsford but I was hesitant to say it because I inevitably get a snide comment when I dare to talk about the past. My orthodontist was in Chelmsford and it’s positively crazy to me as well!
Also, to the OP: I worked in Lexington for 5 years and the commute is basically soul-crushing from anywhere unless you live in Lexington or are close enough to it to take some back roads in. The only times my life wasn’t hell was when I would stay over at my friend’s house who lives there. Even going the few exits up 128 from Lexington to Burlington could sometimes take 25 minutes. I can’t answer for 117, but route 2, route 3, and 128 were all misery as I tried them all in desperate attempts to circumvent traffic. Sorry, just being honest. Anything close and commuter-friendly to Lexington is probably going to be very pricey.
Yeah the commute bit is what has us in a bit of a pickle right now. We are really hoping to avoid it as much as possible. That's a big reason why we wanted to stay in Chelmsford, back roads on route 4 isnt too bad.
Eeek, yeah. The 128 commute conundrum is something many of us grapple with. As I mentioned, I did it for 5 years from 2002-2007, left that job, and have only commuted to companies located north of me since then because it was so draining. I've had recruiters call about jobs down there over the years and as soon as I hear 128, I immediately tell them I'm all set. It's unfortunate because there are many well-paying jobs in that area, but I just don't have it in me to do it ever again. I was actually heading home after an appointment in Peabody this morning and cringed as I passed the bumper-to-bumper traffic trudging along 128 in the other direction.
And I do agree with you that prices 2+ years ago were a very different story. I shudder to think what I'd be dealing with if I didn't move back in 2016. Can you stay put, ride things out a bit longer until there's some more inventory, and try to save as much as possible in that time? I'm obviously not a predictor of the future, but I think waiting things out is what I'd be doing right now. With such low inventory and these crazy bidding wars, I think moving at this time might not be the best choice unless you absolutely have to.
Home prices in Chelmsford (like everywhere else) have gone absolutely bananas. 2 Years go we would have been able to afford a nice house in the town. Our budget now is really scraping the bottom of the barrel now, anything that comes on below 550 is bait for a bidding war or huge structural issues.
Give it some time and let the reality of high interest rates sink in - people will be a lot less likely to go apesh*t with their offers once they realize a 550K mortgage at 6% costs them more than a 800K mortgage at 2%.
That was my initial reaction when I saw the title of the thread!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Remy11
Eeek, yeah. The 128 commute conundrum is something many of us grapple with. As I mentioned, I did it for 5 years from 2002-2007, left that job, and have only commuted to companies located north of me since then because it was so draining. I've had recruiters call about jobs down there over the years and as soon as I hear 128, I immediately tell them I'm all set. It's unfortunate because there are many well-paying jobs in that area, but I just don't have it in me to do it ever again. I was actually heading home after an appointment in Peabody this morning and cringed as I passed the bumper-to-bumper traffic trudging along 128 in the other direction.
And I do agree with you that prices 2+ years ago were a very different story. I shudder to think what I'd be dealing with if I didn't move back in 2016. Can you stay put, ride things out a bit longer until there's some more inventory, and try to save as much as possible in that time? I'm obviously not a predictor of the future, but I think waiting things out is what I'd be doing right now. With such low inventory and these crazy bidding wars, I think moving at this time might not be the best choice unless you absolutely have to.
Oh we certainly have been contemplating if we should wait or not. We first started thinking about homes in 2020 right before the pandemic hit. We didn't have a big down payment then and though hey ya know its an election year, there is a pandemic and the stock market just went down, perhaps now is a bad time to buy anyway... Well enough said cause we all know what happened to the market since.
While we have been hopeful things may calm down, the comps on recently closed houses are still increasing which STINKS. For sure people would think twice about spending an extra $600 a month on a mortgage for the same caliber of home? Yup, wrong again.
*Sigh* Not sure what the right answer is for now. In any case we would both rather rent then move somewhere far out with long commutes and loads of traffic. So unless we can find something in budget and close to our jobs renting is going to turn into more of a long term plan.
Give it some time and let the reality of high interest rates sink in - people will be a lot less likely to go apesh*t with their offers once they realize a 550K mortgage at 6% costs them more than a 800K mortgage at 2%.
Exactly! Really hoping this realization starts to happen sooner rather than later.
Brightey3s,
I’m sorry and I’ve definitely felt your pain in terms of dealing with a crappy commute and also making the tough decision to pass up better opportunities because of the soul-crushing drive. It’s not fair that hardworking people are priced out of every single town in the area. It’s truly disgusting, TBH. I actually just passed up a job that was a step up and paying 20% more because I didn’t want to commute to Quincy. There are definitely days I wonder if I made the right decision. It just feels really unfair.
Is remote work a possibility at all? I was going to say you could always move to a town where rent isn’t crazy pricey (if there is such a thing in MA), work from home as much as possible, and save as much as possible.
Brightey3s,
I’m sorry and I’ve definitely felt your pain in terms of dealing with a crappy commute and also making the tough decision to pass up better opportunities because of the soul-crushing drive. It’s not fair that hardworking people are priced out of every single town in the area. It’s truly disgusting, TBH. I actually just passed up a job that was a step up and paying 20% more because I didn’t want to commute to Quincy. There are definitely days I wonder if I made the right decision. It just feels really unfair.
Is remote work a possibility at all? I was going to say you could always move to a town where rent isn’t crazy pricey (if there is such a thing in MA), work from home as much as possible, and save as much as possible.
Thanks for the kind words. It truly is a tough call on how much money a long commute is worth. And I’m sure that was a very difficult decision to pass out on a job. I relate to this a lot a lot as we both had jobs over an hour away and the traffic was miserable. I can’t bring myself to do that again.
I do hope that the market gets better. It’s disheartening to see people like us who’s wages are not keeping up with the local housing cost. Rents tend to be more or less the same in the nearby towns. For now we will just keep on saving as much as possible which at least would make the monthly payments on a mortgage more bearable!
Home prices in Chelmsford (like everywhere else) have gone absolutely bananas. 2 Years go we would have been able to afford a nice house in the town. Our budget now is really scraping the bottom of the barrel now, anything that comes on below 550 is bait for a bidding war or huge structural issues.
Just curious what types of huge structural issues have you come across? I've seen plenty of homes where there is a lot of deferred 'major' maintenance (new windows or roof needed asap) or it appears the owners just don't give a hoot about even the most basic of maintenance (vegetation growing up the siding of the house, dirty air filter in the furnace). However, I never recall coming across a home, even during a home inspection phase that revealed a huge structural issue.
Brightey3s,
I’m sorry and I’ve definitely felt your pain in terms of dealing with a crappy commute and also making the tough decision to pass up better opportunities because of the soul-crushing drive. It’s not fair that hardworking people are priced out of every single town in the area. It’s truly disgusting, TBH. I actually just passed up a job that was a step up and paying 20% more because I didn’t want to commute to Quincy. There are definitely days I wonder if I made the right decision. It just feels really unfair.
Is remote work a possibility at all? I was going to say you could always move to a town where rent isn’t crazy pricey (if there is such a thing in MA), work from home as much as possible, and save as much as possible.
Quote:
Originally Posted by newenglandgal123
Just curious what types of huge structural issues have you come across? I've seen plenty of homes where there is a lot of deferred 'major' maintenance (new windows or roof needed asap) or it appears the owners just don't give a hoot about even the most basic of maintenance (vegetation growing up the siding of the house, dirty air filter in the furnace). However, I never recall coming across a home, even during a home inspection phase that revealed a huge structural issue.
We passed on a house we finally won a bid on last year because of an inspection. The floor was wavy under the bathroom and we didn’t think much of it until the inspector checked out the crawl space. Turned out all the supports were rotted away under more than half the house and it was just a matter of time before that section was going to give out. Since this was in a crawl space our contractor told us the only way to access and replace the rot was through the house itself. This was in addition to some other smaller but still off putting things like rats, and mold in the attic.
I would say that mold in the attic isn’t always a deal breaker by itself. We know it can be with fixed enough money but usually these kind of houses have multiple big ticket items (rotting fascia, leaky roof) which when your forced to bid over and cover appraisal gaps for a house it’s hard to have the cash on hand to fix these right away.
We also saw a house once where instead of adding a Lally column the owners put a chair on top of some cinderblocks to act as a support and called it day. That one really made us scratch our heads.
Scary basements with water damage and foundation cracks are also something we are hesitant on. Granted We don’t know a whole lot about what these mean just that when the cracks are bad enough it could be a money pit.
Also saw another house where the deck was starting to detach and you could tell it was taking some of the siding from the house with it.
This winter has really been the time for people to drop junk houses onto the market for top dollar.
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