Should I buy now or wait?

Wednesday, December 7th, 2022
Ryan Jenkins

I've been fielding this question a lot latley...

Should I buy now or wait to see if rates fall further? The advantage of buying now is negotiating power, I looked at a home with a client this weekend, we agreed that we were getting about a $30,000 discount because we have to pay today's 6.2% interest rate. So, we started to run a scenario. Let's assume rates will drop 1% over the next year. So if you bought this house next year, that $500k mortgage would be $5,000 cheaper per year but the market would likely heat up. So that $30k discount might be gone, but if you locked in the discount today and could refinance next year, even though you had to pay $5,000 more while you wait to refi, you'd come out ahead, assuming that discount disappears. You're also going to pay down your mortgage by a $5k over that year, but you're going to have to pay $5K to refinance. So those things off set. Of course, this is all speculation. You've got to be comfortable with your payment if rates don't come down. But one thing is for sure, high interest rates are not solving the housing shortage. Buyers were getting squeezed when rates were low because a bidding wars, they're getting squeezed now because of high rates. There’s no free lunch. At some point. You have to jump in with the mindset that you are holding this property for 10 years or ideally forever. And regardless if you buy now or next year, things are going to work out. Even if you didn't buy at the bottom and prices fall further, you have the mindset that you're not selling this home. Even if you have to leave town, you rent the house, you don't sell it.

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"We're going to be really picky"

Monday, September 26th, 2022
Ryan Jenkins

Something that I hear from virtually every client that's buying a home that we've ever worked with: At the beginning they say, “we're going to be really, really picky.” And then about 10 or 15 showings in, they start to feel this pressure because they've looked at a few homes and they haven't made a decision and they start to say, “we must be your worst clients ever!” It's very common. There's a lot of psychological stress and trauma that happens during the home buying process. Lot of people say, “oh, we’ll make the home buying process easy for you!” It's not easy. It's really hard. But the result at the end is worth it. A couple weeks ago I had a client that had just started their search, found a home that they liked and they said, “do you think we should make an offer?” And I said, “well I think this home works for you on a lot of levels but I also don't think you've seen very many homes yet.” They were coming from out of state and the home that they ended up buying was very different and I thought was a better fit for them and so you need to understand that’s what you're going to go through. Your real estate agent needs to create a safe space for you to feel like you can look at a lot of homes. And if you put a property under contract and the inspection is not right, and you just get the wrong feeling, there needs to be a safe place to say, “it's okay to walk away from this home.” You only want to do this once, you want to make it the right fit for you, so just understand, have that relationship with your realtor, set that expectation. A lot of our clients look at 30 plus homes. A lot of times, it's six months between the time that they first contact us and they close on their house.

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Larimer County median home price falls 4%, Weld County falls 1%

Thursday, September 22nd, 2022
Ryan Jenkins

After 6 months of intense increases in mortgage interest rates we’ve finally see a price correction in the month over month data for Larimer and Weld County. Typically we don’t pay a lot of attention to this data because it’s not seasonally adjusted. But because of how fast interest rates have gone up we’re watching it closely right now. Inventory has increased significantly over where it was last year. However, by historical standards the number of homes for sale is still very low. While the interest rate increases have been terrible for housing affordability. They have reduced the amount of bidding wars so our buyers have much more time to make decisions and they are typically able to keep their inspection and appraisal contingencies which means we can get more money for repairs and ask for price drops if we get a low appraisal.

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Have you seen all these news articles where the poor home buyer is saying, “oh my gosh I waived inspection and bought a house with all these problems!!” Why are these people not doing inspections!? Waiving your inspection contingency should NEVER mean that you don’t perform an inspection. Also, just because you waive inspection doesn’t mean you can’t re-negotiate if things are bad enough. At the end of the day, you can always walk away from the deal and that is often all the leverage you need if major issues are found. Your earnest money may or may not be refundable depending on how your contract is structured. One thing to note, there are some instances where a buyer’s non refundable earnest money is a really painful amount. Some well heeled buyers are putting down $100k non refundable! This is rare in Northern Colorado and is more common in Denver and markets like Austin and LA and is usually done on high end homes that have been very well cared for. Regardless of how your contract is structured and how much earnest money is in play, please do your inspection!

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