[nascarnation]

It’s a bad place. Started when Boy Wonder Kucinich took it into municipal bankruptcy in the 80s.

At that point I left.

Inherited a house up there last year, selling it is a nightmare.

[chrisser]

selling it is a nightmare

Since we pay our mortgage, we're basically stuck here.

Many houses recently went up for sale on our street listed at prices that would have been considered realistic 5 years ago.

After a few months, all the signs were quietly taken down. Nobody is buying at the prices people need to get out from under their mortgages.

The people who bought high and defaulted are long gone, their houses foreclosed and resold for pennies on the dollar, and those places are now rentals bought by investors. Everyone who "played by the rules" and bought a house in the last 5-10 years (pre-bubble) saw their home values pulled down below what they owed and things still haven't recovered.

The only people in a "relatively" good position are those who bought 20+ years ago and have enough equity left that they can still take a loss and make enough on the sale for the downpayment somewhere else. We're trying to pay our mortgage down as fast as we can so we can at least break even, but with the fees and taxes and overall prices constantly rising, its a Sisyphusian effort.

If you can get out at a loss, my recommendation is to do so. It doesn't look like things are going to improve anytime soon here.