We keep clutching our pearls waiting for the next rate drop. Then we get insulted. A zero point two five ‘drop’?? Behind some heavy mahogany door, wealthy men are laughing. That’s the picture I have in MY head.
I did a quick check of a 400K home price (which reflects a first time buyer price here in the Triangle). At a THREE PERCENT interest rate, thirty year mortgage, zero down, the principle and interest payment would still be $1687. That does not include taxes, insurance and HOA. My advice? Download a loan calculator and LOOK at what your payment will be (approximately, but close).
The problem is overly inflated house prices! The days of frantic buying are over. I heard we’re 6 months (cognitively) behind reality. We are watching more and more inventory being flooded into a stagnant market, listings sitting longer and longer, prices dropping and dropping, and buyers languishing while shopping, with no sense of urgency. My goodness, what will it take for reality to settle in? We are still ‘whistling past the graveyard’.
Builders are offering rate buy downs? That’s the same as an adjustable rate mortgage folks, and one day that rate will ADJUST to a number you may very well not be able to pay. The wording is different, the result is the same…as in 2008. Ask questions: What will my payment be if the rate goes to 7%? See how you like THAT number.
Buyers, I’m saying this: You now have leverage. Finally, you are not over a barrel. Use your leverage, and as one YouTube creator said, “Be careful not to catch a falling knife”. An adjustable rate mortgage is not always a bad thing, unless you do not understand it inside and out. My first mortgage was an adjustable rate, but at a time when rates were in the stratosphere. Nowhere to go but down. AND I could refinance anytime after the first year, BEFORE the rate adjusted, at no cost to me. Use your mind and your leverage.
Want to chat about it? It’s free to call me. I’m Brenda with Premier Advantage Realty.
Real estate is local. I’ve said that many times here. But what does that mean?
It means that within your state, numbers might show a median home price of $300,000. But that’s statewide. Within your metropolis, the median might be $550,000. And then within your LOCAL market, even within your subdivision, or the one you want to move to, the median might be $355,000. Okay, so what?
Well, if you look at the statewide median price, you might lock that price in your brain and not be able to afford anything at all in the area you want to move to. Why? Because that price is not your LOCAL price. You see $300,000 when YOUR median price is really 50K higher. Get it? Gotta go local.
Now let’s talk about median. Median is not the MEAN, or average. Median means line up every house in a line and put a price above it, then find the middle of that line. There it is. That’s the median. Median is not average.
How do they come up with the numbers? Just like that: make a list, find the middle. No attention to amenities in the community, no attention to the age of the house, what kind of condition is it in, ‘popularity’ of the area…none of that. And I’m just going to say it: Popularity includes low crime rate. There it is. If you buy in a high crime area, you probably got a lower home price, but you’re going to feel it when you try to sell.
Okay, let’s look at the notorious ‘price per square foot’ check box. If a home has a higher one, it might have a TON of upgrades that you will never be able to afford, or won’t be able to wedge in, later. So that PPSF might be worth it! Note that the reasons for this higher factor is not called out for you; it’s just entered in the data. Lock in on the ‘median’ and you’re gonna miss that special three-seasons room you always dreamed of having. Take a few minutes to find out how much that extra 5 bucks per square foot actually effects your payment (or ask AI) and you might get a pleasant surprise. Don’t miss out on that dream home over 5 bucks a month. Remember, you want to be happy with your home. There’s not much better than that.
There’s so much information out there that it’s overwhelming. We feel like we’re in a sea of it. The important thing is to connect these data points in the way that makes your perfect home stand out for you. That’s why it’s important to have a realtor who knows the market, and who knows how to look for hidden issues while you imagine placing your furniture. Real estate agents do that.
We are in the age of information, but you know…you know…that a lot of it is bogus. Check and recheck. And there’s still nothing like driving by the home to get a feel for the community. How much shade is there for summer heat, how is the topography? Are you in the bottom of the bowl where all of the runoff will end up in a storm? Is construction uniform? That matters! It goes straight to your bottom line, and remember when you buy, you will also need to sell one day.
Do you hate being hand-shake distance from your neighbor? Well don’t look in the middle of the metropolis! Gotta go out into the ‘banished from the kingdom’ areas (my favorite). And even those are becoming impossible to find. Do you want an acre of land in the country? Well you’re going to have a septic tank and well, for you guys who hate them.
Food for thought. If you want to chat (chatting is free), contact me. I’m Brenda with Premier Advantage Realty. 919-210-6113. And I actually like talking. I know, who DOES that?
There are a lot of reasons to feel optimistic about the future, but if you are expecting 3% interest rates again, you’re gonna be disappointed. What we have now in upper 6’s lower 7’s is still incredible rates. Full disclosure, my rate is 3% and I’m not going to go UP to 7%. BUT, if you haven’t had a 3% or lower rate, well, this is reality now. BTW my first mortgage rate was over 14% with a perfect credit score. Shew. Glad those days are over. For most people, though, it’s not about the rate; it’s about the resulting payment amount and that is tied to price.
When you hear a market report, and I’ve said this before, remember that real estate is local. Local local local. Example, if you life in Raleigh NC, you will be the last market to fall and the first to rise. Why? We are a fire ant colony, so there’s a lot of demand and that’s the lowest, simplest reason. Lots of people needing housing. But we are also full of universities, colleges, teaching hospitals, regular hospitals and healthcare sites, manufacturing, service providers and dare I say it? Wealth (not me). So we bring in, last metric I heard, 70 people every day. That creates demand and that’s good for a market.
Our market crashed in 2008 for a few months before it started climbing out. I describe it as bumping along the bottom and then suddenly, an uptick. I bought my house during the early stages of the climb, by the way. Other nearby markets stayed down lower and longer, by the way, because in some cases there was no market for their homes. No demand.
Let’s talk home prices. In my area the MEDIAN price has gone up about 2% to the 400’s. And folks, please know there’s a difference between MEAN and MEDIAN. Mean is an average of all prices. Median is just the middle of the scale, period. An increase in median means the prices have gone up overall and more homes in the higher prices are selling more often. Higher priced homes selling more can mean (and does in my market) that there aren’t any lower priced homes fit for most lower end buyers. The whole market has risen, in terms of price. Now I don’t like that because many buyers have been pushed right out of the market, had their dream of home ownership stolen from them. And I’m talking about hard working educated people. Very frustrating for me, because I love my first time buyers.
First time buyers used to find a home under 200K. Now, first time buyers have a 4 in the first number, very often, and few can afford that. The lower priced homes are often old, suffering from delayed or non-existent maintenance, or are a flipped home with lipstick on a pig, to steal that overused description. Sometimes what is hidden is a huge repair bill sleeping. So…better have a smart real estate agent who knows what to look for. Like me. Because these first time buyers area not aware of the market, they want an acre, 2000 square feet, fenced back yard, pool, clubhouse, modern look…no. They’re looking at a 5 or 6 in the first number there.
The outlying areas are the only places left to find ‘a bargain’. And ‘bargain’ might end up being a monster waiting to strike your bank account.
So in my market, and I know my market, it’s tough. You have to be prepared for reality. Yes, have a good credit score, but also have some savings. Remember, even if you find a seller who will go under contract with a 100% financing buyer, you will still have inspections and attorney fees to pay and that is in the thousands.
I’ve said this 100 times. TALK TO A REAL ESTATE AGENT. It is free to talk and gather information. A good agent can prepare you and even give you some ideas of good lenders to TALK TO, so you have that data point as well.
Notice I said TALK. You are NOT going to text your way through a real estate transaction. And besides, studies are showing how spending your time with your head bent down to a phone or computer is keeping you from getting good jobs. Why? Because you have zero people skills. So communicate by talking. Learn those ropes. And if I can help you, I’d be honored. I’m Brenda at Premier Advantage Realty. Call and ask for ME. I do not charge any ‘consultation’ fees.
I was on the phone with a car insurance person the other day, and she said, “You have such a pleasant voice.” Isn’t it interesting?
Hey, have a wonderful day out there! Thanks for reading!
The years 2023 and 2024 were challenging years for existing home sellers. That’s in general; there were some warmer markets. But overall builders captured the market with huge and I mean HUGE incentive dollars for buyers. The problem existing home SELLERS have is that their homes are not new, and they should not be priced alongside new or newer homes. And yet some are.
The problem I see is that often, sellers spend tens of thousands of dollars on their homes getting them ready to sell, and promptly add that dollar amount to their dream price. That NEVER works, folks. What sellers spend is actually required to bring their home back to life to be worthy of the market; it’s not icing. They replace worn out flooring, leaky roof, repair wet crawl space, put in a new water heater, update appliances…all of the things buyers EXPECT to see when they are shopping homes on the market. Today’s buyers do not want to do DIY. They want older but they want it to BE new. See the conundrum?
There’s that dirty word no seller ever hears: Market. The internet makes my job much harder in a way, because it fools people into checking the square footage box, the acreage box, the age box and POOF! There’s your home value. Not. Not not not! Please hear me when I say this: There are a thousand other things to consider when deriving a price for your home and NONE of the online home sites consider any of them. So they tell you a dream price and you buy it, hook, line and sinker.
Remember the ‘nose blind’ commercials? It’s real. But there’s ’emotion blind’ too. Buyers don’t care that your parents built this home; they don’t care that this used to be your room as a child! They have never seen this house, and they don’t see it through your emotion lenses. The automated valuation models don’t know that your back yard view is of a propane dealer or that you have termites eating your floor joists. The AVMs don’t know that there is a plan to put an interstate alongside your property line! AVMs don’t know that your kitchen appliances are forty years old, or that the bathrooms are that age too. They look at age, square footage, zip code and then they grab others with those criteria and give you an average. Most of the time, they are wrong. Read that last sentence again, please.
I’m going to say this and hope you will listen. Real estate agents see thousands of homes each year. We see the best of the best and the worst of the worst. We know how to value your home. By the way, your market is not the same as the one 20 miles away from you. Real estate is LOCAL. Know that when we come to meet you and your home, our goal is to find out your STRATEGY for selling your home. In other words, how motivated are you and why. That’s critical. And then we talk to you about the repairs you’ve had to do, the ones you plan to do, the age of the systems, what you love and what you hate about the home. Then we investigate the building materials (like Masonite or polybutylene) and whether or not you are in a flood plane. We check for easements and private streets and road maintenance agreements. And we check the HOA and covenants. ALL OF THAT makes a difference folks. All of it. AVMs do not consider them, by the way.
But the bottom line is that unless you have made your old house new in all of the ways, you cannot price it alongside new construction. Even if, may I say, the quality of construction may be better. So please, consult a real estate agent (me) and let’s just talk about it. Oh, and then please listen. I will tell you the truth. And then I will help you actually sell your home.
I’m Brenda, a real estate broker with Premier Advantage Realty. Call me.
JUST KIDDING. I just needed to say that. I should say, “Here we go again”, as we enter a falling/stabilizing market and news tells us there’s going to be a crash. I watched a video last evening, one published five months ago, saying, “It’s here! It’s terrible!”. Well it’s not here; there is no crash.
Yet.
Listen, we are approaching an election year, interest rates are up and going up ‘one more time’ this year, everybody’s budget is ruined due to the economy, meaning food and gas prices, light bills, water bills, you name it. Yep, a perfect storm for real estate. And why on God’s green earth would anyone give up a 3% interest rate for a 7.2% one?
What I WANT to say is that you cannot materialize buyers and sellers by pounding on agents or paralegals or real estate Brokers-in-Charge. Pound away! The economy is still in the toilet. I’ve seen this behavior SO many times: Oh let’s have a MEETING to discuss HOW WE CAN GET AGENTS to bring contracts in.
I know how: Fix the economy. If you can’t DO that, go away and stop acting like real estate agents can magically materialize transactions. There are still transactions happening, but on the hot heels of a ridiculously inflated market, anything near normal is going to look like actual hell. So calibrate, is what I’m saying.
Have you noticed how many people are rushing to deliver bad news these days? I have. I watched a financial Youtube channel yesterday and I swear I could almost detect the glee in the presenter’s voice. Thing is, I disagreed with her gloom and doom fare; and I could not for the life of me understand why she should be happy to deliver scary ‘news’. Well that’s not entirely true. I know exactly why she was so hyped up. She was hyped up because she had a ‘better’ opinion of the economy than someone else she either knew or followed and she wanted to win. That’s what you have to know. She did a lot of digging to prove HER point that we are crashing. I don’t think she wants the economy to crash; I just think she wants to win. Simple.
Everyone has an opinion, most will be different than yours. And you can pick the population of stats you want to use to prove your point. Read that sentence again, will you? Before you just outright believe what you are told, you MUST know where they got their data! If they want to prove poverty, you’d better believe the wealthy parts of the country will not be included, for example. Dig a little bit. If you look at these people with the side-eye, news won’t get in your head so much. Look for the agenda. There is always an agenda. If you watch the political pundits, you know by now that they play to their audience. Half of the actual data is left out so that either the conservative or the liberal opinion wins. It’s all about WINNING. Get the rest of the data, will you? Or spend your days in fear and stress.
I’ve lived a while, and I know things go in cycles. And I know that two things always grow and get worse: Greed and Lust for Power. Okay, so it stands to reason that prices are going to go up. The rich WILL get richer, and many of them will dip into my wallet, and yours, to make that happen. So I adjust my sails and so should you, because there is nothing we can do about it, other than be smarter than they are. It feels like nothing surprises me anymore. I see every election cycle wreak havoc on the working people, and I see politicians and would-be politicians, pushing fear and stress out so they can PRETEND to offer relief, which of course they never do. Why? They are greedy and lusting for power. I won’t tell you how many times I’ve witnessed this. The days of any politician caring how you live and what you need are over.
I’m watching a talking head…about 12 years old…not really. He’s in his 20’s with no real life experience. He’s preaching gloom and doom about real estate, which he is NOT involved in, recommending renting. Renting! Well have you thought about how rent goes up 10% a year? Okay, you can move to a different rental. How about moving cost? Then that place is going to be raising rent on you as soon as they can. Gonna move again? No sir. Buying is still the best idea, but yes, a good real estate agent is critical. Real estate agents know where the good areas are, they know where the bad ones are too. They also know which builders build a good product and which ones do not, and they know which ones make you put up BIG money to write a contract. Why? If the builder depends on your money to buy materials….run.
Economy. Yep, it’s crap. Going to be that way for a while until the bad programs get unravelled and the bleeding stops. Every once in a while you get people running things who cannot do math. When that happens, gird your loins and hang on. Things always get better. The ‘universe will balance’ is what I say. And watch what his happening around you. Remember when the car lots were bare? Now they’re filling up? Why? Well, people can’t afford to pay for cars anymore, folks. So let’s see how this goes. Prices of cars will go down. To a point people CAN afford. Nobody’s going to die. Cars are not going to burst into flames. Things will balance. Just have a little patience and learn to do math.
See, the thing is, if the math doesn’t work, if everyone is getting something for nothing, the economy is going to tank. You should vote for people who can add and subtract; that’s all I’m saying. Or, just step outside and give your money to a passer-by, ’cause it’s going away from you in any case. Meanwhile, don’t listen to these pundits with any kind of trust in what they say. THINK about their motivation first, and then find out where their data is coming from. I know I can make statistics say anything I want them to, and if you can’t do math, I own you. But I happen to be honest. Lucky for you.
Best thing you can do is just don’t watch these knuckleheads. Take your debit card and go to the store. Buy what you can afford. Adjust your sails and be patient.
And about the housing market? Any time you need a home is a good time to buy. You just have to operate within the current economic situation. If the interest rate is 6%, that’s what you pay. Real estate agents, contrary to popular belief, cannot control the economy, and we can’t produce buyers for your home. But we’re a valuable source of critical information about your market. We are the boots on the ground and we have mud on those boots and scars from actually being out there working. Most of us actually do care how you live and what you want. Can’t afford the home you dream of? Adjust the dream. Simple. Sometimes the adjusted dream is even better anyway.
Remember the sun is alway shining above the clouds. It might be yucky for a while, but it’ll get better.r
Real estate markets are shifting beneath our feet right now, as we’ve been prodded from lethargy. Well…lethargy in the PHILOSOPHICAL SENSE (we actually worked our buns off). Sellers didn’t have to put forth much effort to sell, buyers knew they basically needed big money to play, market time was sometimes one day, realtors often had no time to stage or even photograph, lenders were staffed up and ready to go, appraisers were sitting in their trucks with the engine running. There was a great deal of complacency, if we call it like it really was, but we moved a LOT of real estate through the system. Everyone knew the role we were supposed to play and we just got on with it. Let’s just say it was interesting, if not insane. And listen, logistics did not in any way diminish stress. Let’s just get THAT on the table.
The bad part of all of it was that first time buyers were incrementally pushed right out of the market in many cases. It wasn’t a shove, it was a sneaky, stealthy inching and edging. Eventually (too late) this prompted lenders to provide programs to assist these folks; but now, even those programs often can’t work, because house prices have gone through the stratosphere, ridiculously so in some cases. Something must give. And it is giving. The issue with most folks trying to evaluate the market is that there are MANY moving parts, not just one, and not the least of which are interest rates and home prices. Then there’s the ‘supply chain’ issue driving infrastructure prices up, and there’s wage issues for contractors in high demand. Then there are huge numbers of professionals pouring in to find housing to live in for that new job they got moved here for…demand, demand, demand. And there’s greed; let’s just put that out there too.
The market is undulating and struggling to find its footing. Have you ever fallen? You know that feeling when your feet slip from beneath you and you haven’t hit the ground yet? That’s where we are. Right there. It’s scary and unpredictable, to say the least, but that’s what we’re dealing with. And all of us, real estate agents, sellers, buyers, lenders, contractors, everybody, are trying to figure out our new footing, which by the way will surely be temporary. Just when we think we are balanced, standing there with our arms out, sweat beads on our forehead, the ground will shift again. Picture that. But you know when you first stand up on a surf board and you are trying to find the sweet spot? Once you find it, it’s AWESOME; and then you ride the wave. You’ll find that place.
We’ve seen this before. I’ve read that everything occurs in a sine wave configuration, with fairly predictable ups and downs, if the data are tracked. Problem is, most people don’t look at data. Not once. They just repeat the mantra. That’s dangerous. Some people call data swings ‘the pendulum’. I say this: “The pendulum swings. It always does.” Whatever it is, we’ve been here before, sometimes in extreme circumstances. And we’re still here; that’s the important thing. Listen, you know this. If things are just perfectly perfect, warm and cozy, rich and sparkly, get ready because a rug’s going to be pulled out. The only thing that never changes, is change. And you also know, one bolt coming loose causes the whole apparatus to become unsteady eventually. That’s how real estate works. It cascades.
What we have to watch out for, to effectively analyze and to separate apart the nuts and bolts, are the actual market and the panic stirred in by news broadcasters, real estate professionals and talking heads (repeaters). Stay with me on this. Everywhere on the news is gloom and doom…which is normal coming up to a big election, by the way. Fear works like a CHARM. That’s one factor. Good news doesn’t get viewers, so the message has to be ‘crash, crash, crash’. But always remember the moving parts. Remember that the picture is complex. There are many moving parts and experienced professionals understand this and can avoid panicked, anxiety driven responses. So do some digging before you allow fear to dictate your next moves. Adjust your expectations. And for goodness sakes get a real estate agent with enough experience and smarts to help you think this through and understand it.
Now, the real estate market may crash. I don’t know for sure, but I doubt it. But what I do know is that there are things in place to prevent a ‘crash’ unless it is politically beneficial. In other words, I still have hope that the economic process will work. Will it be lovely? No. Corrections are necessary and they are never pretty. I’ve been through a few. I remember when the ‘tech sector’ crashed, remember that? Stock prices plummeted? Yeah, ugly. And the crash of 08 was, in my humble opinion, driven by greed and ignorance. Greed on the part of financial and political institutions and ignorance on the part of the people out there buying houses. I don’t mean STUPID; I mean ignorant. If you’re spending the biggest amount of money you’ve ever spent, you OUGHT to have an idea what’s going on. Really. So educate yourself out of ignorance of the market. And while you’re at it, ask some questions about how agency works.
Here it comes. Alert number 1001: Real estate is local. That means what happens in your subdivision could be very different than what happens in one 10 miles away, and definitely what happens in your state will not be the same as one across the country. So you need to see the actual data. DATA folks, data. And you need to know which train car your market is in. Were you the first to fall in 08? Or were you the last? THERE’S A REASON FOR THAT. Find out what that reason is and you have one big data point. And then think about how you should respond. Remember when I said sellers didn’t have to do much of anything to sell their house? Well that was the anomaly and this is now. Time to clean the carpet or declutter, time to expect to have to make your home attractive to buyers. Move-in-ready, folks. Move-in-ready. You heard it here first.
So for now, we see houses sitting on the market longer, maybe as much as weeks longer, and we also see agents rushing in making ridiculously low offers. We are not in a crash, and our demand here is still overwhelming: This is NOT a panic market. In other words, sales prices are often at list price rather than above, and some sellers are selling below list price, too, but not fire sale price. Not THAT low. It’s not time for that.
Builders can’t build fast enough, neither for renters nor for buyers. AND some are still trying to charge elevated prices like they did when interest rates were around 3%. Those days are over. But it takes builders time to turn that ship around. They will though. They surely will. Although I worked for one once who said, and this is a is a quote, “We are just going to ignore the economy and keep on selling houses.” Ask me how that worked out. Listen, humans are adaptable. We’ll get through this and yes, we will buy and sell homes.
Once the providers of supply adjust…and they are adjusting…supply will flow again, and demand will flood in. It will happen. Right now we’re in deer-in-the-headlights mode. People are standing with great big eyes, feet planted, looking around for the boogey man. Wait. Picture that; it’ll make you laugh. But it’s all about the money, ladies and gentlemen. I’m already seeing builders lowering prices, changing the stupid high ‘deposits’ and providing ‘broker events’ to lure us in, where we were public enemy number one for a LONG time (not with DR Horton though; they still paid real estate commissions as usual). Builders slashed our income because in their minds, buyers didn’t need representation. They did, but many buyers didn’t realize that. Anyway, we’re not so bad now; we’re being asked to come around, see what we offer, have a sandwich, we love ya, bring your clients. I’m chuckling. I know where THIS is going. But that’s a HUGE sign that builders have lost a LOT of traffic. See? Data point. Another data point: Real estate agents have good memories. Now I’m being facetious. BUT, you can’t expect to keep ignoring the economy and expect business not to change. Interest rates have gone up! Time to adjust.
What I tell my sellers is that buyers are still out there, but the buyer DEMOGRAPHIC has changed. In my market, the ones who are now shopping can afford the rate hike, but they also know the market is in flux and they’re taking advantage (once they break out of the deer-in-the-headlights stance). Why wouldn’t they? They’ve been beaten up pretty bad for several years. The market is ‘normalizing’. Listen, a 30 year rate under 3 was a HUGE anomaly. THAT was what was strange. We are now moving back to top dead center. For my first time buyers, my heart breaks. But we adjust, we are industrious, we figure things out. And in the not too distant future, the market will favor buyers about as much as it favors sellers….except in the areas where demand outstrips supply. Sellers will keep the upper hand there until demand falls.
Bottom line is this: Real estate is not dead, it hasn’t crashed, this is not the time to panic. It’s going to be okay. But it will go back to more ‘normal’ interest rates. I call that around 6% even though my first interest rate was 14% with a perfect credit score and good income. AND I SURVIVED THAT! (I know) So hang in there.
I have a foundational theme, which is that most problems go away if expectations are correct. So I encourage you to look at the data right around you (local, remember?), and adjust your expectations. It might take a little longer, cost a bit more, but you can still get there. I’ve been here before…in a changing market, that is…and I made it through. You will too. A second foundation theme is that stress kills.
I know. Some folks can NOT handle stress. It’s sad to see them end up very ill or worse, after worrying and hollering their way through a transaction. Not worth it folks, not worth it. No amount of screaming and caterwauling is going to change interest rates or change lender requirements. Deep breath, expectation adjustment…and call an experienced, level headed real estate agent. Then, we we freak out, you freak out, and not one second before.😉 Keep it between the ditches, fly straight and level, keep it between the channel markers, wear your life jacket, remember your parachute….whatever floats your boat. How’s THAT for cliche writing? In other words, lean more towards logical action rather than caterwauling. Just saying. hahaha.
If you want to talk, call me. I’m Brenda Briggs at Coldwell Banker Advantage. Find me online. Meanwhile, have a great day!
It’s a great question right now. Listen, I’m an experienced agent and this market scares ME sometimes. The speed is unfathomable and the effect is like that of being on a tricycle on one wheel speeding downhill. There’s no time to think. When my clients ask me whether it is a good idea to wait, I’m torn. Part of me thinks waiting would make sense, because rushing toward anything but ice cream doesn’t thrill me. But then reality sets in and I think rushing isn’t so bad. Here’s why.
First, as we have already seen…are already SEEING, because the trend forming now…interest rates are going up. In this competitive bid market, every dollar counts when you are trying to win the day, and every uptick in interest rate lowers your home search price. Every drop in home price means you have MANY more competitors. Homes below 400K are getting hard to find, at least the ones without ‘issues’, in many cases. And if YOUR price point dropped, so did that of your competitors, so the race will be more fierce.
For my clients, I advise them to make the financial adjustments that will allow them to stay in the hunt, to take advantage of low interest rates. I’m not a financial person, not an accountant, not (thank goodness) a wall street employee, but I think we are heading for an economic correction like we have never seen in our lifetime.
I don’t think we’re heading for a “real estate crash”. Not even close. Demand is too high and supply is too low for that situation to occur. No, I think inflation is going to bite us big, I just don’t know when. Common sense tells me we’re heading that way, and filling my car with gas confirms my assumption. I’m not an accountant either, but I do know you can’t buy a dollar’s worth of anything with a dollar that is now worth 40 cents.
Then we have rising prices for everything from food to gas, and we have supply shortage of everything from PET FOOD to cars. When this shoe drops, it’s gonna hurt. So waiting is actually a bad idea.
Most of my clients are not moving for the fun of it; they are moving because of a need to position themselves for the future, whether it be for the next leg of the journey or for settling into the end of their journey. So the need is there; that’s not going to change. So what I am saying is this:
Go ahead. Don’t wait.
And I know I beat this one into the ground, but hire an experienced real estate agent. This is a brand new market/economic condition which CAN be navigated effectively, but your agent must know what all of the moving parts ARE and how they bump into one another and change things. Your agent MUST know how to protect you in this unprecedented, fluctuating, expensive market.
Speaking of pet food shortage: Mess with my pets and we’re going to have problems. But it seems that’s also happening.
brendabriggsrealtor 