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- Thread starter SoapyCy
- Start date
I love how CF takes an honest real estate question and somehow brings freezing children into the convo.
Never change, CF. Never change
Never change, CF. Never change
Have you considered in-floor resistant heat? They make mats that can go under laminate/carpet as well as tile/stone for 7 or 8 dollars a square foot. I've laid a couple of these under basement bathroom tile floors and they work great. You could heat a 12x12 bedroom with thermostat for 12 or 13 hundred bucks.
Real estate in Marshalltown is surprisingly good with Fisher struggles. I think a lot of this is the fact that many employees commute anyway from Ames or Des Moines, so the housing market isn't affected too much by it. Especially when you consider the people who are let go are retirement age and probably own/won't sell their home, or newer employees, who are probably younger and way more likely to commute.
Your current $175k is on about the top range though of what I think would sell quickly. It's rare for houses in the $100-150k range to be on the market for more than 30 days, seems most sell in about 2 weeks. Good luck selling that $281k house though if you ever need to.
There is an awesome house for sale right next to my house here that's been on the market for a very long time due to its price. That's a big reason why I've backed off the idea of getting a loan to dump tens of thousands into our house. We'd be sitting on it for ever. There's a sweet spot that we need to stay within in order to have a quick sale. That's all I really care about at this point.
Fisher has had 2 rounds of layoffs so far. They still give annual cost of living raises. I think it's more forcing early retirement, temp people, and people that have been there less than a couple years. So if you don't know people in those categories, it's business as usual
Thought it was 3 but I guess it was 2 layoffs so far. I think they have reached a point though where the number of employees is sustainable in the current market, unless oil and gas tank some more.
had things gotten better for them after '08? My husband was working there as an intern when the recession hit and they did that whole thing then too - chucking interns, temps, new hires, early retirement.
Sucked because he was two months into a nine month internship and had taken a semester off school for it.
Things were great when oil was over $100 a barrel. Current downturn isn't as bad as '08. Fisher isn't only oil and gas but $50 a barrel helps keep production sustainable in the US, been bouncing around that price since June '16.
I'm sure it's the lower end operators that are getting let go which is leaving the market in the 150+ range status quo.
We looked all over the north end and while there are some beautiful houses up there, especially north of Jerome at 5th/6th St, we couldn't get over the surrounding houses. There are quite a few 100-150k houses in my neighborhood that have been sitting unsold for quite some time. I just can't figure out where the market sits in Marshalltown and ultimately we are leaving town and commuting because of it. I just did not feel comfortable spending over 200k on a home knowing we won't be in it for 10+ years or whatever it may be.
it's not as great as it may sound...but can work if you really can't find a buyer. If I remember correctly, the builder will appraise your home and then will purchase it for a certain percentage of that value. In the few instances where I reviewed the transaction, the seller/buyer took quite a hit of nearly 25% of the homes value. Not a great deal but ok if you MUST sell it.
Remember, if you can't sell it, what makes you think a builder can?
Also, a builder may do it to move their inventory, especially if their short-term financing on a construction loan has come due and they need to pay the bank to procure additional funds for future projects. A certain builder in DSM used to use this "house trade" or "I'll buy your house" thing because he built ****** floor plans that wouldn't sell.
Now, with real estate moving pretty quickly, I haven't run into this in quite a while.
A stronger market for 200k+ priced homes. We were looking to build equity over a shorter time (<10 yrs). Either a moderate priced home that needed renovation or a mid-upper priced home in a fast growing area where sq footage could be added/finished. Nowhere we found in marshalltown fit that bill. I just didn't feel comfortable about the resale. I plan on completing the work myself and didn't feel there was a strong enough chance it would pay off in the end. There is absolutely no way I'd spend 250+ on a home in Marshalltown without knowing for sure it was a retirement home.
The south side is the better bet, either that or out Lincoln Way past the towers. The area between Southridge and Olive all sells quickly. I wouldn't spend over 200k either.
I live in this area (just west of you) and you're right that a lot of houses in that price range do sit for awhile, but I think that's because of: 1. location and 2. the house itself. We bought our house last year (after the second day of it being on the market) and there were two buyers right behind us wanting to put an offer in if ours fell through.
$200k is a pretty high price in Marshalltown. There are plenty of nice homes for under $200k, even $150k, they just aren't newly built. When we were looking, there were a lot of homes built late 70's and 80's that were renovated. I don't know too many people personally looking to buy houses over $150k, the one that was ended up building in Ames. On a side note, town houses seem to sell pretty well in town too.
Take a look at Zillow, etc. Almost all of the 200k+ priced homes have been sitting on the market for months or are new construction. That has been the case for these houses since I started looking over a year ago. That tells me people in the 200k+ range are buying new. but even the new developments aren't seeing very fast growth. I saw probably <10 new houses go up over the summer, most of them north of menards and south of that east pond. A few of those are still sitting empty from 6 months ago.
Marshalltown just isn't a town that demands those types of homes and the market still thinks it can demand the type of prices they see in the DM suburbs. I don't see it.
Not quite sure where you think I live at but you're right with the rest. That's why I can't figure out what's going on in Marshalltown. The houses don't seem to be priced with condition and location in mind on the same scale you see in other areas. That's why I never saw myself getting money out of a renovation. I'm not saying there aren't good deals out there, they're just all over the map. It sounds like you found one of the good ones.
