Rolling booms, rolling busts

From the New York Times:

When You’re Moving, but the House Just Sits

PAULA AND DAVID LAPADULA had lived in the Northeast their whole lives, most recently in Woburn, Mass., a suburb about 15 minutes north of Boston. Having grown weary of the long winters, they started thinking about moving more than a year ago.

Mr. Lapadula was in Raleigh for business several times and liked the area, and on a visit, Ms. Lapadula liked it as well. It was not long before Mr. Lapadula, a technical sales engineer, got a job offer, and they decided to relocate here. They put their house on the market for $455,000.

But a strange thing happened on their way to a new life in North Carolina. The residential real estate market in their old neighborhood seemed to slow down considerably the minute they listed their house. Seven months later, after dropping the asking price by $75,000 to $380,000, the Lapadulas’ home finally sold.

Having lived in an apartment with most of their belongings in storage for the last nine months, the couple are relieved to begin building their three-bedroom house on a quarter of an acre in Holly Springs, a Raleigh suburb. The cost is $350,000.

Newcomers from around the country are helping to drive housing sales in Raleigh. Yet it is not clear whether there will be a ripple effect in places like Raleigh because of the slowdown in other regions.

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