Busy with the house

It's been days since I updated my blog. I fell behind in my blogging responsibilities but I am posting belatedly to catch up. I've been busy getting the house ready. For a party you ask? Nope. Try again. For remodeling? Nope. Try again. For the realtor to take photos of the house? Ding. Ding. Ding. Correct!

Uwe and I decided to put our house on the market. We've been seeing a crazy real estate market here in California (LA especially) with ridiculously inflated prices for homes. In 1990, the average house price in Los Angeles was $222,200. Currently the average home value in LA is $476,000. A number of friends of ours have been looking for a house to buy and they can't find a decent house for under $600,000. And we're not talking anything extravagant, but just a starter home. After having owned a house for 2 years, a married couple can take up to $500K profit tax free and the real estate brokerage fees are tax deductible. We're already seeing the real estate bubble bursting in NY and it's just a matter of time before LA is affected as well.

The market is so crazy that even my parents, who are not big on change, (who also live in southern CA), are thinking of selling their home because they see how much houses are selling for on their block.

There is a rub of course. If you sell at the height of the market and you want to buy right away, you also have to buy at the height of the market. But we're young and can wait it out and rent another house until prices come down and become reasonable again. The timing couldn't be more perfect because we just hit 2 years of owning this house and since I'm not working, we can move closer to Uwe's office for a shorter commute. But we're only selling if we get the right offer so we'll see.