Everywhere I go I hear doom and gloom about the housing market. There is even a certain group of people who talk as though anyone who buys a home today is a fool, and anyone who sells them that home is a thief. I just don't get it!
Home prices are as low as they have been in years, and so are interest rates, and this has resulted in many first time home-buyers who would never have been able to afford their own home at this point in their lives being able to buy. As an example, I havea client in her mid-twenties who just closed on a nearly new 3 bedroom, 2 bath home for less than she had been paying in rent! To say that she was thrilled is a huge understatement. She had always watched her credit, and saved her money, but in the previous market it would have been years before she could have afforded to buy. Seeing her face at the closing was like watching a child open presents at Christmas.
I know that many people are still on the fence about buying because they feel that the market is falling, and they will wind up with negative equity. This actually is a possibility, at least short term. But the benefit of buying still outweighs the risks. Think about it, folks: Buying a home is NOT supposed to be first and foremost an investment. It is, and always should be, first about having a stable place OF YOUR OWN in which to live, and secondly as an investment. If you rent, you are subject to the vagaries of a landlord. Will he raise the rent this year? Will he cancel your lease, so you have to go to the trouble and expense of moving, only to find that you have to pay more for your next rental? And if you're worried about losing equity in a home that you buy now if the market drops further, how much equity will you get from that rental, even if the market goes up? ZERO. If you own your own home with a fixed rate mortgage, you know that your payments will remain about the same, you won't be forced to move if you don't want to, and you know that your home will eventually gain in value, and you will have that equity.
And I'm not even going into the first time homebuyer's tax credit available right now. That is the subject of a whole 'nother blog.
So think about the positives for a while, and you'll see that it is still a good time to buy!
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