What's a poor home buyer to do in Greater Boston?
Yes, it really is that tough for home buyers trying to break into our local housing market.
Greater Boston is still one of the most expensive metro markets in the country, despite years of slowly deflating values.
And now, just when logic and the worst economy in decades would dictate that buyers finally have some bargaining power, Congress waltzes in with its extension of the home buyer tax break.
In markets flooded with unsold homes, like Phoenix, Miami and Las Vegas, the tax credit is needed to move inventory that would otherwise languish.
But in Greater Boston, where the number of unsold homes has fallen to its lowest point in years and where there has been little significant new housing construction in decades, the tax credit is having a very different impact.
It is flooding the market with buyers eager to claim their credit, bidding up the few decent properties under $600,000 that happen roll onto our perennially inventory-starved housing market.
Don't take my word on it - check out Jenifer B. McKim's excellent piece on the bubble-years-like competition that is breaking out between tax-credit armed buyers over a small pool of decent properties.
It seems sadly similar to when my wife Karen and I bought our Natick fixer-upper in 2002, having been unwilling to compete on bidding wars for cramped, overpriced Capes with fresh coats of paint.
Not surprisingly, the really expensive stuff - such as homes worth $1.5 million and up in Wellesley - is still languishing on the market.
In many ways, the struggles home buyers experience in Greater Boston turns on its head the robotic Realtor line that it's always a good time to buy.
In our housing market, there never really is a good time to buy, only periods when it is somewhat less frustrating.
For fed up buyers, one obvious tactic is to simply wait out the tax credit and the unrealistically low mortgage rates that have fueled the current, mini-frenzy.
Of course, it's anyone's guess whether Congress really lets the tax credit expire at the end of April given the market's current addiction to it.
However, that doesn't solve though what is clearly the Achilles heel of the Greater Boston housing market - perpetually low inventory.
Enough of my rambling. What's your take?
