USA Today weighs in with front page stories on the News and Money sections today.
Another downside to selling real estate is that it is far more costly and time consuming than selling a stock. You’ll also lose the tax deduction for mortgage interest.
“Stocks can be sold in seconds, but it may take two to four months to complete a real estate transaction,” NAR’s Yun says. A stock transaction can be had for less than $10, whereas selling a house results in outlays in the thousands for commissions and closing costs.
“The real question,” says Randall Guttery, a professor of real estate at the University of North Texas, “is what do you do with the money” you made from selling your house?
This is the real quandary that those in the Charlottesville market face. “Sure, I could sell my home for a huge profit, but I couldn’t afford to buy my own house!” is something that I hear time and again from friends and clients. Where is it going to end? Will it? I don’t know, but people continue to relocate to the Central Virginia region, for all that it has to offer. This influx of outside money will continue to drive our market. As a community, we have to ensure that we maintain the vibrance and reasons why people move here, lest we start to resemble a certain region to the north of Culpeper.
Investment alternatives are slim, he says. The stock market is struggling this year, with the Dow Jones industrial average down 2%. And low yields on bonds and money market funds are nothing to get excited about either. That brings us back to real estate.
Says Coldwell Banker’s Cook: “I hate to say you can’t go wrong with real estate, but …”
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