Key takeaways
- The current housing market is causing many prospective buyers to wait for better conditions, but there’s no guarantee that it will improve considerably anytime soon.
- If your credit score is strong, your employment is stable and you have enough savings to cover a down payment and closing costs, buying now might be smart.
- If your personal finances are not ideal at the moment, or if home values in your area are on the decline, it might be better to wait.
Buy now, or wait? That’s the question prospective homeowners have been struggling to answer in today’s housing market. Home prices have been skyrocketing recently, and the Federal Reserve’s work to tame inflation sent mortgage rates soaring, too.
The combination has led many would-be buyers to pick the “wait” side of the equation. The volume of existing home sales was down 4.3 percent from March 2023 to March 2024, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). And, according to the Fannie Mae Home Purchase Sentiment Index released in April 2024, 79 percent of consumers believe it’s a bad time to buy a house. Click Here to Read More…