Data: April 2024 Is Good Time to Buy A House [VIDEO]

Video Transcript

it’s April and many of you renters have a big housing decision upcoming renew your lease for another 12 months or become a firsttime home buyer instead this video has the data to help you choose which way is best let’s get into it I’m Dan with home buyer.com we are the mortgage company for first-time home buyers let’s Jump Right In with the answer to whether now is a good time to buy your first home April 2024 the data says yes it is so if you have the means to buy your first home now is a good time to do it you’ll do better than if you rent for another year and as for why it’s a good time to buy your first home that’s what the rest of this video is about we’ll talk about the three forces that affect firsttime home buyers how those forces are behaving right now so in five years or in 10 years you can look back and say I’m glad I bought a home in April it’s a good thing that I stopped waiting now before we move ahead one piece of housekeeping here because it’s always worth mentioning this is a video for renters potential first-time home buyers who are choosing whether they should rent for another year or not this data this video does not apply to investors or corporations or fix and flippers this is for renters making a choice about whether now is a good time to buy a home and we’ll talk about three data points that support that analysis starting with Point number one and that’s mortgage rates already mortgage rates have been this year’s big story and it’s just the start of April for a lot of first-time buyers rates are down more than a percentage Point since last fall and that drop has given buyers an additional 15% in purchasing power over just the last six months meanwhile over those same number of months home values are only up about 4% which means that yes home prices are rising and the market remains competitive but the ongoing drop in mortgage rates is making up for that in then some if you could have form a home for $200,000 on November 1st of last year today you can buy for $230,000 that is a big jump also eligible first-time buyers are still getting access to automatic mortgage rate discounts through the fhfa first-time home buyer mortgage rate discount program you don’t apply for it you just get it and FHA backed homeowners are paying less too because last year the agency lowered its mortgage insurance insurance rates the thing about mortgage rates though is this you can’t time them nobody can really know what they’re going to do next markets are random like that but two things that we do likely know is that one your rent is going up that is almost a certainty and two home values are also which brings us to the second reason why now is a good time to buy a home and that’s that there are way more buyers than sellers right now that is the textbook condition for Rising home pric prices and right here let’s point out loudly that the crash in home prices that the news that your Uncle Walter that the people in my comments that that everybody said was going to happen that crash it never did happen and it won’t because for housing to crash there would have to be a tremendous influx of homes coming onto the market a surge of new Supply at the same time the demand for homes from buyers magically disappears because that’s what causes crash lots of Supply not much demand which anyone who is in the market to buy their first home right now will tell you that’s not what this housing market is it is the reverse of Crash conditions actually there’s not enough homes for sale and too much demand over here so housing isn’t poised to crash there is nothing in the data that suggests that it will anyone who’s telling you differently they’re using you for clicks because you can see with your own eyes that there are way more buyers than Sellers and that is true true in nearly every city on almost every street in every Community it’s true home sales are down generally in raw terms they are sales volume was its lowest in 30 years last year and is only slightly better now but sales are downed because the shelves are bare there’s less than a 3-month home supply Nationwide and that is the kind of figure that shows how buyers outnumber sellers there are a lot of buyers over here and not a lot of sellers over here and that’s the reason number two why now is a good time to buy prices will be higher in the future you will pay more to buy the same home reason three is a little bit different it relates to Market momentum and psychology it gets into seller greed because buying a home or selling one is more than a financial transaction for buyers who plan to live in their house it’s also an emotional one I mean this is your home and the emotions of buying and selling which can include excitement and can include Pride also include fear and greed that’s on both sides of the table and that determines how your negotiations are going to go those emotions so right now with home prices rising and demand for homes up sellers feel less fear than a year ago and have moved this way toward greed they’re making you rush to offer to bid up your price to feel fear that your bid won’t be accepted which we’re now starting to see in actual data according to the National Association of Realtors in February one quarter of all home buyers 25% they wave their right to have a home inspection that’s up four points from the month before that a huge jump greed is rising with sellers fear is rising with buyers and that combination makes it harder to get great deals your ability to buy and afford a home interest rates notwithstanding will only get worse you will pay more you will get fewer concessions from Sellers and there another reason why now is a good time to buy later this year seller greed will be bigger now a few wild cards here specifically we talk about with Congress and with first-time home buyer programs that can change the discussion we’ve already talked about the $10,000 firsttime home buyer tax credit here the president mentioned it in his State of the Union Address last month and the $25,000 cash grant for first generation buyers and we’ve talked about the lift act which mortgages the lower rates below 2% but two other program s have more momentum with Congress right now the first is the helper act it’s a 100% mortgage for teachers and First Responders it’s a plan with bipartisan bamal momentum there’s more than 130 co-sponsors and it is a great story for an election year that could pass into law soon that’s called the helper act and also the FHA right now is sitting on a huge pile of cash five times its minimum required reserves so at any time the FHA could decide to lower its mortgage insurance premiums for the second time in two years that is something the FHA can do on its own without the work of Congress and that would help buyers too with lower monthly payments less insurance paid 19% of first-time buyers will use an FHA backed mortgage as always we watch these developments so you don’t have to we write about them in our newsletter you can subscribe to that we talk about them here make sure that you’re following both for more information and to be a better buyer those are the reasons why April 2024 is a good time to buy a home it is not the best time in history it is not even close to the best time in history to buy a home but this month relative to next year when you can make this Choice again whether it’s a good time to buy or to rent for another year this time is a good time if you have that choice if you like this video subscribe for mortgage updates and when you’re ready to see how much home you can afford get today’s current mortgage rates in our immediate mortgage approval on the site in as little as three minutes with no paperwork at home buyer.com I’m Dan with home buyer.com the mortgage company for first-time home buyers happy home buying