Why Your Home Might Be Your Winning Powerball Ticket
The estimated NH Lottery Powerball jackpot currently sits at $1,040,000,000. Um. Not the biggest we’ve seen, but still a nice purse. Your odds of winning are, however, 1 in 292,201,338. Eventually, somebody’s got to win, but chances are it’s not you.
Anyway. Let’s dream a bit. What would you do with that cash? Turns out one of the most popular online activities Millennial and GenZ participate in is dream browsing houses. For example, even though I’m not a Millennial or a GenZer, 42 Birch Hill has been on the market for 32 days now and I’ve been starting at the house for a few days now.
You might not actually need or want that big of house as 42 Birch Hill, and in fact, if you are planning on or even just thinking about down the road downsizing, you may have already won the lottery, according to Zillow’s chief economist Skylar Olsen.
In a recent MarketWatch article, Olsen said, “Pandemic-era appreciation was stunning,” Olsen said. The article goes on to say, “The ‘luckiest’ seller is the one who is downsizing, especially those who are able to buy a smaller home without any debt.”
“The reason why I say lucky is because what happened over the last three years was stunning and, in some ways, was a bit like winning the lottery,” Olson explained. Downsizers, or as Realtors like to say “right-sizers”, these individuals are sitting on properties that have significantly appreciated in value over the course of the pandemic. The MarketWatch article highlights that U.S. homes are collectively valued at around $52 trillion in 2023, making a 50% increase since January 1, 2020. States like California, Florida, New York, Texas, and New Jersey have seen the most significant increases in housing values.
It’s not often I agree with anyone from Zillow because they tend to take a bird’s eye national view of real estate when in reality markets are very different at the local level, from town to town, and even from street to street.
Over the past 90 days in New Hampshire, we’ve seen about 4,852 listings with sixteen average days on the market, and a median sold price of $430,000. If we just examine four specific towns, we see very different stories play out in median price points.
- Rochester: $301,000
- Somersworth: $410,000
- Dover: $485,000
- Portsmouth: $710,500
There’s been a meme going around on Facebook asking you to look up Zillow’s “Zestimate” of the first house you purchased to see how much that home has increased in value. You know, that’s fun and all, but I’d ask you do that with your current home; then do a little math:
____________ Zestimate
-___________ Mortgage Owed
=__________ Cash in Your Pocket
Sure, this is some way simple math. You probably, for starters, shouldn’t just rely upon the Zestimate to find the full value of your home. What improvements have you made over the years, and how much did that cost? You need to decide whether you are going to hire a Realtor or sell on your own and figure in the costs associated with either of those paths. Do you need to make any immediate home repairs to get the home sale-ready? If you decide to stage your home, this is an additional cost as well. There’s a whole slew of other potential factors to consider.
So, while the odds of hitting the Powerball jackpot are slim, the ‘lottery win’ in your own home might be more attainable than you think. If you’re curious about what your home is really worth and how to capitalize on current New Hampshire real estate market trends, feel free to reach out for a personalized consultation. After all, isn’t it time you cashed in your winning ticket?
NEWSLETTER ANNOUNCEMENT:
As many of you know, I run a bi-monthly eNewsletter where the first of the month I present a flash fiction personal narrative, and on the fifteenth of the month I present a national real estate headline and relate that to the local market. This next upcoming October 15th eNewsletter contains absolute vital information that will have long-lasting implications for VA buyers.
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