The news is buzzing the real estate market is shifting quickly, mortgages rates have jumped way up and you might be asking yourself…..is now a good time to buy or should I wait for prices to fall.
We all want to buy at the bottom and sell at the top…buy low sell high…right?? This, however is much harder than it seems, no one knows what’s the top of a market or where the bottom is. When the right to buy is a different answer for everyone. Let’s consider some circumstances.
Time – A bit morbid but we each only have so much time on this earth. If we are considering moving to a home we will live or vacation at, then we have to take into consideration there’s a value attributed to owning a home and gathering those life memories now. If you wait 5 years and house prices go down, you’ve lost 5 years of those memories. When its time for people to move into a home they will live in, a huge part of the decision should be how much the home gives you peace and joy. When you come home from work, does it help recharge you, if yes, then owning the home is a good investment in your well being in life. I will personally pay more for a home that I live in and not care if it the value goes down or up because its where I want to live and I get a lot of joy living everyday life in a home I love. With that said you can still find a home and get a good deal while prices are flattening out. So putting value on time of now is something to consider.
Investor – If you’re a real estate investor is it a good time to buy in Cape Coral? I’m not so sure. If you buy a home and want to do short term rental, I would encourage you to look at
https://www.airdna.co/ – Will run data to help get vacancies. It’s a cost per zip code.
Look at how many homes are available to rent, we’re now moving into a recession, will all these homes be filled this season??? Wil there be enough demand? In a recession one of the first things families cut out is vacation or added costs. As we move towards next winter season in Cape Coral 2022-2023 we will see how the demand for rentals is. Gas prices are high, food is high, its expensive to live right now and people are cutting back. Many people bought vacation rentals in the last 2-3 years creating WAY more competition of places to stay. If I was buying a vacation rental, I would want it to be a very unique property, something that really sticks out that is not easily duplicated in another home, something that will give you an advantage for vacationers to stay in your home. Id be very patient and make sure the numbers work for your goals.
Buying long term rentals? This depends on your goals, maybe you don’t care about cash flow or appreciation but are a high-income earner and need tax write offs, buying long term rentals can be a great way to lower tax liability. I encourage you to speak to your CPA about the pros and cons. When buying long term rentals, I try to keep them at the 1% rule. For example, if I buy a home for $350k I want the home to generate $3500/Month. The last few years it’s been very difficult to find deals that financially make sense; however you can still find them.
When building a portfolio of real estate, it’s a good idea to take the baseball approach. When accumulating real estate most purchases will be single and double hits. Its more rare to get a triple, home run and extremely rare to hit a grand slam. A huge mistake investors make is they want every deal to be a grand slam. If you play the game, take the hits that get you on base. Over time you will accumulate a nice portfolio. The cool thing about real estate is sometimes a single hits turn into grand slams over time. Anytime you can find rentals in Cape Coral that meet the 1% rule, buy them.
Owner/occupant – As an owner occupant, you will have to decide is renting or buying is better for you. If you rent and wait, prices could come down. In theory if rates keep going up, it should sink buyer demand. Low housing demand will cause inventory to rise and with more competition, sellers are forced to lower price. This all takes time to unfold, sometimes years. So you have to weigh out my first point of “time” while waiting, life goes by and we are not guaranteed prices will fall. The government could roll out 50 year mortgages and pump housing right back up. On the other side, we could go into a deep recession and homes drop 20-40%, no one knows. There gets to be a lot of noise when you decide to buy a home and who you should listen to. Some will tell you, your crazy, prices will fall wait for the crash. Others will congratulate you and say you got in at the right time. This can create a lot of confusion, especially with first time home buyers. If you’re planning to stay in a location short term, then maybe the risks don’t make sense to purchase. If you’re planning to stay long term and you want to own a home and enjoy home ownership, then maybe it’s the right decision. If you’re on the fence, I would wait, once you feel convicted then it’s the right time.
Owning a home the pros and cons – Lets start with the cons:
Something breaks you have to pay to fix it. A friend of mine is a home insurance adjuster. She takes phone calls from people who want to make insurance claims against something that broke, like a furnace goes out. Insurance most likely wont cover these things. If a storm causes damage, then the insurance may cover that. If a roof leaks because its old, that is likely a homeowners cost. As they say when it rains it poors….you can have appliances go out and its expensive. There are provides where you can pay monthly fee and they will fix broken appliances. You’ll have to research to see if that’s a fit for you.
A benefit of renting, if something breaks the landlord will pay to fix it.
I’m not recommending this company, I’ve not used them but here’s one example:
Another con of owning is, its harder to relocate. If your renting and want to move you can give notice according to your lease and move out. When you own a home sometimes it can take a while to get it sold, not as easy to move on a timeline.
Theres a lot of pros of owning your home:
You can remodel it, paint it, change it to how you like, this can be super fun and exciting, then have your family or friends over to show off your updates. This fits into my first point, your home should bring you peace and joy, making your home how you like will contribute to your inner peace.
You can get tax benefits from home ownership. And who doesn’t like to pay less taxes 😊
You can stay long term if you like. When you rent a major down fall is a landlord can give you notice they are selling and now you have to move, not because you want to but because your forced to.
Your payments stay the same. When you get a fixed rate mortgage you know what your payments are for the duration of your mortgage, they won’t go up. Rents have skyrocketed in Cape Coral the last few years and if you’re a renter you have no control over that.
You can have other people move in with you and its not a breach of a lease agreement. You have much more freedom of who lives or doesn’t live with you.
At TMListings.com we are not going to try to convince anyone if it’s the right time for them to buy, it’s a personal decision and could be a huge win financially or loss, so we like to give you some things to consider this big decision. If you decide to move forward, we will help you find the best value for your home purchase goals.
If you’re on the fence, you can request to sign up for our free automated market watcher, it works super slick! You give us your email, a home buying criteria, we plug that into the MLS and you get notified whenever something meets your criteria, then you are in the driver seat to watch the market.
TMListings.com is here to help, reach out to us today and let us know how we can help you achieve your goals.
Thanks for reading
