I have loved this house below for many years, and every time we drive past it I tell my wife if it's ever for sale we're going for it. Well, one day I saw a PODS out front, and I got really excited until I saw the listing price. It sold in 2014 for $500k (listed at $525k), and even though the owners didn't appear to do any upgrades or updates, it listed for $930k last month. The sale CLOSED 13 days later, all cash, for $1,326,000 - yes ~$400k over ask and recorded in under 2 weeks. Spoiler alert - it wasn't us who bought it
It's an unbelievable market, but it's not a bubble like in 2008 because there is truly no inventory (under 1,200 homes in Denver metro when it was 10x that 3 decades ago before) and buyers are extremely qualified with more wealth than ever. I had the dubious honor of working for a homebuilder in Las Vegas in 2005-2008, and what we're seeing now is nothing like back then where the entire industry was predicated upon bad loans and very complex structured finance. An explosion of concentrated wealth in the last decade, record low inventory, migration and demographic shifts including people moving from places that will be impacted by climate change (this is a very real but underreported reason for people moving from the coasts and away from places with extreme weather/fire risk) and lots of highly compensated people now free to live wherever they want due to remote work are all factors leading to this unprecedented increase in real estate values.
There may be some localized valuation adjustments coming in the future as interest rates rise (an argument could made that is unlikely as well due to the potential of an inverted yield curve and fallout from global conflict), but even if prices fall 10% or 20%, we are still far behind affordability for most people. It's a complex, frustrating issue, and I worry about the ability for anyone but the wealthiest to be able to attain home ownership which has historically been one of the main paths to generational wealth and financial freedom.