Why you should not wait to purchase your new home!

If you are trying to time the real estate market, you may miss out on the best opportunity to purchase your new home! There are great opportunities in the real estate market, especially in the new construction industry. Builders are offering tremendous discounts, incentives, options, and prices on their existing inventory. There are many great home buying opportunities available in the Scott AFB - O'Fallon real estate market

You see, people who already have a home usually need to sell it in order to come up with the down payment for their next home.  Even if they don't, they would have to carry the debt and obligations on two homes at the same time.  This can create financial hardship, even when you rent out the previous home.  There are maintenance costs, renters don't always make their payments on time, the rent may not cover the mortgage and other costs, and sometimes the property may be vacant.

So if you are a move-up buyer and want to purchase your next home during a depressed market, you generally have to sell your current home during that same depressed market.  If you want to sell during a boom, then you also have to purchase during the same boom. You are really trading apples for apples and it tends to equal out, and what is better is if you are looking for a bigger and newer home you should be able to save on the purhcase of that home, way more than you will lose on the sale of your smaller existing home.

On the flip side however, if you are wanting to "downsize" from a larger home to a smaller condo or home, you will take the larger "loss" on the sale of your home vs. what you might be able to save on the purchase side, depending on what you are looking to purchase. Many sellers are trying to get away from the higher real estate taxes on the large home that they already are living in, but be careful, because you will find many smaller, less expensive and older homes will have high real estate tax bills too!

Finally, suppose you are a first-time buyer and are thinking if you continue to wait that home prices will become even lower!  If you guess wrong, are you going to wait...and wait...and wait...till the next depressed market?  If so, you could miss out on loads of savings! You see interest rates on mortages right now are near all time lows, home prices are very flexible and are there are some great buys in the market right now! So are you going to wait until mortgage rates go back up or until home prices begin to climb? You see you will never make money in real estate until you first buy a home.

Consider this...you need to live somewhere right, you also have tax advantages to owning a home, there is a leverage that you receive by using "other peoples money, ie...the bank or mortgage company" to purchase a home, you begin to enjoy home equity, enjoy the American Dream of home ownership. If you continue to rent, you will be contributing to the wealth of your landlord.

...and if you wait assuming you will guess right about your market timing. Well, in 1996, when the home market was struggling, who would have predicted what the next seven years would bring? You see home prices will go back up, everything has a cycle---right now the real estate market is down, but it really only has one way to go and that is back up. There is and always will be a demand and need for housing. Also, consider this...our prices in the Metro East area of Illinois are bargain prices considering most areas of the country, and our home prices already represent a wonderful value.

If you are considering buying your first home, condo, new construction home, or if you are considering moving up to a larger and more comfortable home (it is cheaper than trying to add on, especially if you "overbuild" for your neighborhood) then please feel free to contact us. You will be glad that you did!

Paul Walker, Broker Associate with...

Realty Executives of Metro East
1109 Hartman Ln, Suite 200
Shiloh, IL 62221

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Bellevlle Real Estate
Scott Air Force Base Real Estate