What Rising Rates Mean for Buyers and Sellers in Our Market
Kelly Allen
After attending Georgia College and State University, Kelly Allen decided it was time to pursue a new challenge: the wild world of residential Real Es...
After attending Georgia College and State University, Kelly Allen decided it was time to pursue a new challenge: the wild world of residential Real Es...
Interest rates are rising, which makes this a great time to sell your home. If you’re looking to buy, the picture is a bit more complex.
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Mortgage rates have been very active lately. Right now, a 30-year fixed mortgage rate is around 4.7%. That’s almost a seven-year high, and it’s almost 1% higher than where it was a year ago. This is the result of a steady rise that began in September 2017 and ended last May.
What does this mean for our real estate market?
It's certainly true that affordability is down. In fact, one estimate from June found that home affordability is at a 10-year low. This is translating into fewer home sales, fewer viewings, and fewer mortgage applications.
Here’s the thing, though—I don't believe that the shifts in the mortgage rate are the primary mover of the changes we're seeing in the real estate market. So far, it’s not causing buyers to not purchase. However, it has convinced more sellers not to sell, which is causing inventory to drop to yet another all-time low.
This means that it’s still a great time to sell your home. Because of our lack of inventory, you’d face very little competition. It’s also very likely that you’d find a buyer and get a top price. If you’d like a detailed estimate of what your home is worth, don’t hesitate to reach out to us as we’d be happy to provide that to you.
If you're looking to buy, the picture is more complex because it's so hard to predict what the mortgage rate might do in the near term. We do know, however, that it will continue rising. We also know that the lack of inventory won’t make prices very favorable toward you. The good news is, there are plenty of great homes in our area that haven’t been snapped up yet. If you’d like to take a look at some of these homes, feel free to reach out to us as well. We can even let you know what’s coming on the market before it comes on the market.
As always, if you have any other questions about our estate market, whether you're buying or selling, you can give me a call or send me an email. I'm here to help.