The Housing Market Is Still Red Hot, So Here's What 12 People Endured In Order To Actually Buy Homes This Year

Ever since the pandemic began, the housing market has been extra hot. So far, 2023 is no exception. A recent report from the National Association of Realtors and Realtor.com showed that 75% of homes are unaffordable for people making $75,000 a year or less. Five years ago, these same middle-income buyers would have been able to afford about 50% of homes on the market. And don't get me started on rising interest rates.

Recently, I asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to share what their experiences have been like in this year's wild housing market. Here are their stories:

1."We started just casually looking and toured a 'for sale by owner' house one day. We'd been scheduled to tour six homes that day, but FOUR of them sold the day before. (Our Realtor even went, 'Sorry, and the rest of your list for the next few weeks is gone, too.') But this house had been put on the market the day before. It checked all our boxes. It was a little under cost for the area (which should have been a red flag, LOL). We put in an offer that night, they accepted the next day, and within 25 days, we had closed.

"We have a lot of stuff we need to fix (the wife even told us they'd been too busy with careers and kids to keep up with stuff, so she put it about $20,000 below 'market price'), but we had no idea how much was wrong until we moved in. We had an inspection. We had an appraisal (appraisal came back $6,000 over). We got very, very lucky, but buying a FSBO house was a nightmare.

"Our Realtor said he'd never do another one after this one, even though we went from looking on June 4 to closing on June 30 and moving in on July 20. It was so stressful and draining, and the 7.213% interest rate is soul sucking and causes me a lot of anxiety, but at least we're no longer in an apartment, and everything we put into this house (so far a lot of blood and sweat — it's so hot, LOL) is ours forever. Just really, really hoping that the interest rates cool off soon because that's a major strain I wasn't expecting."

—ladypalutena

2."My husband and I saved for years, and we spent 14 months looking for a house and put in three offers before finally having an offer accepted. We had to offer $25,000 over asking and waive the inspection as well as appraisal contingency in order to get our offer accepted. The only reason we could afford the house we got was that we lived with my parents for almost a year!"

3."I started looking in February 2022. I’d been in my house for eight years now and wanted a bigger yard for my dog and more than one bathroom. I lived in a city, and I’m more of a 'wide open spaces' kind of girl. My mother is a Realtor, so I had 24/7 access to her and the inside scoop on any new listings. The first house I put an offer in on had 22 offers and went for $60,000 over asking price. From there, I put in offers on three other houses before I had an offer accepted in June. I had to go $30,000 over asking.

"On all of the houses I offered on, I typically lost out to someone with all cash. Not to mention, the houses were already listed well above what they would have gone for five years ago. And I hate to admit this, but I’m getting help from my parents. They are advancing me some of my inheritance. I work in education and am single and could never have afforded to move on my salary and in this market.

"I hate that I’m getting help from my parents because I know not everyone has that privilege. Selling my house was also a wild ride! In three days, I had 38 showings and 11 offers. And I went with one that was lower than some but all cash. It sold for almost $100,000 over what I bought it for and $30,000 over the asking price. It’s been a wild and frustrating ride."

—Sarah, Syracuse, New York

4."My husband and I are in our early to mid-30s (with two young children) and were moving across the country for my job. So not only were we somewhat unfamiliar with the neighborhoods where we were looking, but we also wanted to find a house in a good school district for our kids and had to be moved in before my start date. After looking for months and not finding much because of very low inventory, we expanded our budget from 'comfortable' monthly payments to 'I guess we can make this work.'

"Fortunately, we found one house we loved within that budget in an awesome school district. The previous owners chose us out of the three offers they received. (Ours was not the highest offer, but apparently we had more secure financing.) The mortgage process was pretty frustrating: The monthly payment estimate kept increasing above what our lender initially quoted us, and the interest rate never really came down. (Fortunately, our lender locked us in at a lowish rate early on in our process.) Overall, it took a long time to find a house that met our needs, and we're paying slightly more than we are comfortable with, but we absolutely love the house and its location, so can't complain."

—Kristin, Minneapolis

5."My sister was living in an apartment and wanted a house, so she moved her family in with our other sister. They intended to stay for a year, which turned into nearly three. My sister is particular, and she wanted a house in an area with good schools. Given the limited choices for high school for my nephew, panic set in. Had they continued living with our sister, my nephew's choice of schools would have been either a low-rated school or a school with gang activity.

"This is a west suburb of Chicago, and my sister's main goal was to find the right house so she could give her kids a quality education while keeping them safe. When she had given up hope, a house in the neighborhood she wanted came on the market. She’d seen the house before, and it turns out the house belonged to our older sister’s coworker. My brother-in-law’s cousin is a Realtor, and after a few phone calls, my sister and her family became first-time homeowners."

—Dani, Wisconsin

6."A whirlwind of excitement, double-checking that I had taken my anxiety meds, aggressive bidding, and spam-calling our Realtor the second a house in our budget became available. My husband and I have made some pretty colorful curse word combos throughout the past six weeks. We saw our house on a Saturday, put in a bid, and by Sunday, our offer was accepted. There were potential buyers lined up for every 15-minute tour from 8 to 4 during the open house. It was very cutthroat; the tension between couples was filled with fake smiles and side glances."

7."My fiancé (now husband) and I were graduating from college and wanted to buy a house in the state we were moving to. We put offers on multiple houses, but our hopes were dwindling, and our deadline was coming up for when we needed to move to start our jobs. We put in one more final offer, well above asking price. The house was online for one day and we never went to see it. Our offer was accepted and we closed in 10 days. Fastest closing anyone we were working with had ever seen. We never even met our Realtor. Walked into our new home and started our first real adult jobs two days later. Everything worked out until we realized we had no idea where our mailbox was...it took about a month of working through the Realtors to find out it was down the street and we needed to get a new key."

8."We were moving from the East Coast to the West Coast. We had a very tight turnaround time to pull everything together for my job change. We coordinated a house-hunting trip with a meeting that I was attending for my new employer. There were several times when we found a house that we liked and it was either purchased, sight unseen, before we'd even left the property or we ended up in a competitive purchase process. We finally found a house we liked in a historic district in the community we were targeting. The house went on the market in March and had not had a single offer.

"The owners had conducted a presale inspection of the property wherein numerous issues were identified. We met with a contractor and were told that it would cost about $65,000 to fix the issues. It also meant that we would be living in a construction project for a number of months. However, we had done it before and knew that we would have to be flexible. We put in the offer, minus the $65,000, and noted needing to fix the issues that their inspector had cited. They came back and offered $10,000 off the asking price. We countered with $50,000 less than the asking price, and they said that they were standing firm. We decided to pull the offer and paid for more airline tickets to seek more options.

"When they heard that we pulled out, the real estate agent turned around and said that the seller would have everything fixed if we paid full price. Because we had already purchased airline tickets, we decided to keep the house in the running but not limit our choices. Upon entering the house when we returned, we quickly determined that the luster was gone and we would perpetually have a bad taste in our mouths with the property. Instead, we purchased a house that had been on the market only a couple of days that was actually much better for our needs. It cost us significantly more money to fly back out but ultimately saved us tens of thousands of dollars in the long run. It was quite the saga, but in the end, we ended up with a much better home that was cheaper than the first home, and it is much closer to my work. Win-win-win!"

—Brent, Sacramento

9."We were buying in New Hampshire. Houses were selling like hotcakes. We got lucky that an older woman seemed to want to avoid paying more property taxes ASAP (she owned another property as well) and accepted our offer because we waived our inspection in order to close faster. We got lucky that there weren't any issues that would have been revealed in an inspection, but it could have been a disaster, since the house is 100 years old."

10."Today is Tuesday, and my settlement is Thursday! I got very lucky in my process. I'm a 23-year-old woman, and the number of times I was told about how the market was before, or that I was stupid to be buying when I was, made me absolutely infuriated. I worked my ass off to save and to buy this home, and I've gotten a lot of resentment from friends around my age because of it. I am lucky to have a job and support system that allow me to do this, but many people around me do not, and they've been hostile toward me. Frankly, when I went to buy, I thought the hardest part would be actually buying the home, but turns out it is the negativity from those around me."

11."It's been a nightmare, especially since I'm living in Southern California, where the housing market has been insanely hot for the past several years. I have been looking at houses in the low-$900,000 range, and it is still very tough to find anything reasonable. The last houses I looked at that seemed nice, I put in a bid, and it wasn't even considered. Every house I have looked at easily sold for $150,000 over the asking price. If I looked out of state, I could easily afford something else, but that means I would have to leave my family and friends behind."

12."We started looking in 2020, lost 10 houses — my favorite of those went for $125,000 over asking. Finally secured our home in January 2023 for $50,000 over asking and at an interest rate almost 4% higher than when we began our search. We already want to move. We were tired of losing homes in the areas we wanted and we needed the space, so settled on the location. DON'T settle on the location. They aren't lying when they say, 'Location, location, location.'"

Have you been in the housing market this year? Tell me how it went for you in the comments.

Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.