[AviationGuy]

Things seem totally out of control with real estate prices. A year ago I had a realtor do an analysis of my property, which is just a 1400 sq ft, 55 year old house in the city. At that time he estimated the market value at $525K. Last week he updated it to $675K, and one week later $722K. I think it's because of the bidding wars where people are offering cash just to get into a house, and at ridiculous prices. This is a comfortable, friendly neighborhood and not extravagant at all. Yet some of the larger homes, including on my street, are currently estimated to have a market value of $1.5-2.0M. My realtor friend said that there's very little inventory in the city, so people who can, will pay just about anything whenever a property comes on the market (often without there ever being a "for sale" sign). It's making a lot of us in the city rather wealthy on paper, but not in reality, because the property taxes and cost of living here are killing us. For me, the expenses of maintaining this old house are a huge burden. At some point, we'll be forced out like the minority community in East Austin was forced out. I can see myself being forced out in a year or two, and I honestly don't know what I'm going to do, because anywhere I would want to live is in the same situation.