I am currently going through the process of selling my current home and buying a new one. Last year, my real estate agent said she would list our house at 180k.

I am currently going through the process of selling my current home and buying a new one. Last year, my real estate agent said she would list our house at 180k. I'm in a rural area so that's a modest 3 bedroom which needs some work on the bathrooms but is otherwise pretty nice. We just signed a contract without ever listing our house for 220k. We're buying a house that was listed at 230k in February of last year but didn't sell and was rented out. It was listed again recently and we made a full price offer for 259k. As far as I'm concerned, we're still coming out ahead because we got 22% more for our house and are only paying 13% more for the house we are buying. I was in the market for a house in 2007/8 as well and the market feels completely different. We might still be in a bubble but the underlying market is NOT the same and the causes of the bubble (if it is one) are different. in 2007 there was not as limited housing supply. There was bad money being used to buy houses via overfinanced buyers and banks willingness to lend to them. Today, there are cash offers all over the place. Lower income buyers are being priced out of the market. Also labor and material prices for new houses are skyrocketing which is increasing the demand and prices for existing housing inventory.