Quantification

For frequent followers of this blog, they remember the needless pain and suffering regarding this Farmhouse.

Now it turns out this is the first resale of a Catskill Farms home that has been resold.


Amazingly, after the worst housing pricing decline in the history of the US with the exception of the Great Depression, this house appraised for more than the owners purchased it for 2 years ago. that's a pretty significant statistic, because while the new owner didn't pay the full appraisal price, the fact remains that this home held it's value with all sort of macro-economic odds against it.

And then my friend Dean went to reappraise his house that he bought in February 2009 (remember when the world was ending) and once again the appraisal landed above what he paid for it.

Now, I'm not saying that means selling things in this environment is easy, but it does mean that our homeowners retain many advantages over the average American underwater homeowner - good appraisals mean the ability to refinance into lower rates, good appraisals mean the ability to sell when you need to, good appraisals are what it is all about, and with the extreme conservatism of the appraisal industry these days, getting a deal done - be a house sale or a refinancing - means our homes are passing some pretty serious stress tests.