It's Official, Now is the Time to Buy!
The Time to Buy is now, read below and find out why
The actual price of a home is only one of many factors to consider when purchasing a home.
Many people sell one house and buy another, all at the same time. That adds another dimension to the timing question. You don’t want to move twice and still need a place to stay. It is important to look at the real estate market as a whole and decide if this is the best time to do everything.
Here we are after the big crash. The real estate market is all but stagnant and interest rates and homes prices are low. This is the perfect time to move up to a larger home.
It’s no secret that home prices are down and have been for quite a while. The big question on everyone’s mind is what’s going to happen next? Will prices fall further? When will they start to rise again? If you were just buying your first home, you might be tempted to wait until prices are at their lowest. If you were just selling, you would hope for prices to peak. If you are doing both at the same time, it doesn’t really matter.
Move up Homes are priced very attractively right now. The difficult part for most homeowners is coming to terms with the current market value of their existing home. Homeowners know exactly how much they paid for their present home and how much monies they have invested in it.
They also remember what it was worth at the top of the Market, then add to that some pride of ownership and emotional attachment. You need to step away from that to make a smart decision about selling it. Your house is worth what the same model the next street over recently sold for. You may get a little more for major improvements like remodeled kitchens and swimming pools, but not as much for all that work you did decorating, reroofing or landscaping.
This is a major roadblock for many homeowners. Many homes sit on the Market with unrealistic listing prices because their owners can’t look at their homes objectively. If you know what your house is really worth to a buyer, you can sell it at that price and move on, even if you think the home is worth more.
Interest rates are crazy low. We have gotten so use to these low rates because they have been around for a while. This is likely to be the case until the real estate market starts picking up, and then rates will rise.
Low interest rates are important, possibly more important than price, for two reasons. How much home you can afford 
depends on the amount you can pay each month? The interest rate you are able to get has a huge impact on this number. Not convinced? Go to my On-Line Mortgage Payment calculator and find out what your payments would be with a 4.5% interest rate versus a 6.0% interest rate. Each percentage point makes a huge difference in your purchasing power.
Buying a House is a long term decision. You will be making payments based on that rate for 30 years. This opportunity isn’t likely to come around again. Low interest rates will also help you sell your old home by increasing the number of buyers who can afford it. They have to qualify for the monthly mortgage payment, and more people will be able to do that at 4.5% or 5.0%.
In addition to home prices, the number of homes selling each month is well below normal. The fact that buyers are scarce is good for you when you negotiate to buy your new home. In this Buyer’s market, sellers are offering incentives and reducing prices. Surprisingly the current market conditions put you in an ideal spot to sell your old home.
While you won’t be able to get the price you want because of Appraisals won’t support an inflated value, but you will be able to sell quickly. Here’s why. Many of the homes on the market today are distressed sales. There are foreclosures that have been vacant for months and are in desperate need of maintenance and repair. There are short sales which require lender approval, which may or may not be forthcoming. Many of Today’s Buyers have little interest in these types of properties.
If you are able to offer a well maintained clean house for sale and a buyer can move in within a couple of months, it will draw those starry eyed buyers like honey!
If you can look at the entire situation as a whole, you’ll see that this is the perfect time to move up to a larger home. If you’ve been waiting for the price on a new home to hit bottom or for your existing home to be worth a certain amount, you’re missing out on the perfect opportunity to make your move. I think you will agree that there’s no time like the present.
Have a Real Estate Question or interested in buying or selling Real Estate, just give Kathy a call at 954-347-0244 and visit www.KathyHyatt.com