I sincerely hope that only financially sound and capable people are able to secure a mortgage and not fall into the traps of "I make $10/hr yet I can get a $500k home" schemes that saw the ruin of many households.

Having said that, the prices jumping back is a good sign for existing home owners implying any (and there are many) under water homes are getting back into the black and equity is starting to rebuild.

Now if we can just do something about these damn property taxes. Just yesterday in the news the gov of NY in his state of union promised another cut in property taxes and we saw a hike just last year. Now the county is talking about a court house project with another tax increase. No wonder latest numbers show a migration of residents out of new jersey.

Yeah, we were thinking about "upgrading" to a brownstone so no neighbors would complain about our 2 boys running all hours of the day. But then I noticed that even small fixer-uppers are running 900K +. Guess we missed our chance...

Has anyone notice the recent jump in home prices? Was thinking of buying a fixer upper until all of the sudden prices sky rocketed in my neighborhood and elsewhere in Jersey City. Who is buying these homes? I thought they had cracked down on you have a a job you get a mortgage even though you can't afford it schemes.