Saturday, October 4, 2008

Why Now Is A Good Time to Buy

We all know of that the economy is a mess (thank you Wall Street & Congress), however I find that I've been Very Busy over the past 2 weeks.  I've been negotiating offers in the $200K range all the way up to the High $800K range (with a few in between).  You may be wondering Why anyone is buying right now.
Well, think about this:

First, let me go through the assumptions:
30 Year Fixed Rate Conforming Loan (Principal & Interest Only)

A $300,000 loan at 6% is approximately $1,798 per month.
A $300,000 loan at 8% is approximately $2,201 per month.

Guess how much the value of a property would need to drop in order to get the payment back to what is would have been at 6% instead of 8% in this example.

Approximately $55,000!

$245,000 at 8% over 30 years is just over $1 per month in payment.

So... Given all of the economic BS going on out there, do you think Mortgage Rates will be going up or down?
Remember Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac?  Do you think investors are lining up to buy Mortgage Backed Securities right now? If the demand for MBS's goes down the return must go up in order to lure the investors back in (supply/demand).

Not to mention that it is harder to get a mortgage right now than it was before, and it appears that it will continue to get more difficult.

So if you are looking to buy a home to live in (not to flip) then Now may be one of the best times.

What do you think??

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought Interest rates were going to go Down not up.

Gerry Bourgeois, CRB, CRS, GRI, Realtor said...

Given that we are still near historic lows for Mortgage Interest rates, in addition to what is happening with the economy, I don't think they'll be going much lower. Lets hope I'm wrong.