Things have been hopping,as you might imagine. We saw a bunch of houses last weekend. We went out with our Realtor Tom on Saturday and he showed us a few houses. It was funny because there were a bunch of couples with their respective Realtors, all seeing most of the same houses as we were seeing. It was like a little real estate wagon train traveling around Babylon Village.
There’s a lot of furious activity now. I assume it’s because people are trying to slip in under the Nov 30th deadline and get that eight grand from Uncle Sugar.
Most of the homes we saw had little or no interest for us, so I’m planning to write about those homes sometime soon. Right now, I’m also working on the July Sold Homes post. There were ten homes listed as being sold in July 2009 in Babylon Village, so it’s going to be a long post. I should be able to push it out this weekend.
This is an open discussion thread, so I invite any and all readers to pipe up and say something. Feel free to leave a comment and ask a question, make an observation, tell us what you’re up to or just introduce yourself and say hi.
I’m very interested in hearing fellow home shoppers, especially their impressions of any open houses that they’ve seen, but I’d also like to hear from any sellers and their experiences and observations.
I’m posting this “sticky”, which means that it will stay at the top of the page over the weekend even if I post new stuff afterward. If you’re accustomed to stopping by and glancing at the top of the page to see if there’s new stuff, scroll on down a bit before you click away.
Enojy your weekend, everyone. Happy hunting.
Homes in Babylon
- Total: 106
- Babylon School District: 76
- BSD and Under 600K: 36
- Condos/Coops:11
We seemed to be hovering in the low to mid 90’s for total home in Babylon over the summer, but now the inventory is creeping up. 106 is as I as I’ve seen it in some time, maybe since last summer.
Unfortunately, the pickings are pretty slim at the lower end of the market. We’ve edged up our max price a bit to try and tried to look at a few more homes, but not much really appeals to us.
My feeling is that there’s a lot of “shadow inventory”, sellers waiting in the wings for a real estate recovery. My subjective observation is that there seems to be a higher percentage of estate sales, retirement sales and divorce sales in the mix than there was a couple years back. The recently purchased, nicely renovated homes on MLS have — to a certain extent — given way to the “charming” houses that have kitchens and baths from the Age of Aquarius and need “a little TLC”. In other words, the people who are selling now are the people who need to sell. Those who think they can hang on are hoping to ride out the bad real estate market.
Unfortunately, I’m looking to buy now…right now…and the possibility of better homes being available at lower prices some time next year isn’t helping me out here. For those of you who are still on the sidelines waiting, this coming spring could bring some serious deals.
There is indeed shadow inventory which is being kept off the active market and will be for the short and mid term future (1 to 3 years). That does seem to have resulted in an inventory of third tier houses at most of the price levels (except for the very upper end $2 million +). I don’t envy your search, particularly with your emphasis on a Babylon village only address. I do wish you luck!
Well, I haven’t wrote about it much on the blog, but we’ve also been looking in West Islip. I really want to live in Babylon Village, but I’m thinking that it’s just not going to work out for us.
72 Roosevelt?
72 Roosevelt is a little out of our price range. Plus the owner yelled at my wife because of something that someone wrote about the house in the comments of this blog.
200 Cedar?
I want to go look at 200 Cedar. We’ll see.
“the owner [of 72 Roosevelt] yelled at my wife because of something that someone wrote about the house in the comments of this blog.”
And yet mysteriously it still remains unsold (TIC), now down to $469,000.
200 Cedar is an oddly positioned corner house
A good time to check out those S.O.M. houses is during a rain spell.
I might swing by tomorrow and have a look at it from the outside.
I hear what you’re saying Don. Debra and I used to run down in that area every morning (before the baby came, of course) and some of those streets were like rivers whenever there was the smallest amount of rain.
Interesting. I only get one hit in the Search Box for 72 Roosevelt. I wonder if I said something about it…I doubt it. I’m just that kind of paranoid, not wanting to offend…That is a cute house, though, 72 Roosevelt. Good ‘hood, too.
Metro, here’s the post with the offending comment
https://homeinbabylon.com/2009/08/13/open-house-84-village-line-rd/
Scroll down to the very end. Not all that shocking, really.
I liked 72 Roosevelt. (Did I read somewhere that it’s at $459?) My husband thought it still needed a lot of work. We’re also looking at houses in Babylon Village, in either West Babylon or babylon schools.