Other than being one of the best 80s songs by The Clash, this question weighs on the minds of homeowners thinking about a move. These past couple years, real estate has felt like a game of Whack-A-Mole - hoping to tap the little mole at just the right time. For a while, he was popping and it was chaos trying to be the lucky one to get the mole. But for the past year or so the mole won’t even come out of the hole - so we wait and wonder when he will be back. Clearly the mole is a metaphor for the real estate market.
Life happens and there will be times we need to change our living situation - your family may be growing or the kids may have moved out, maybe you got married and your one bedroom party studio isn’t working anymore, or you are just done with that long commute to work and want to move closer for a better quality of life.
Some of you may be waiting for interest rates to drop to make a move. If you are renting, there may be a cost to waiting it out - lost equity, rent paid to someone else that you will never get back, and tax implications. Plus if you hate that purple kitchen tile, you just gotta live with it.
Interest rates are highly unlikely to drop to the 3-5% range, unless something really bad happens, which no one wants. Market experts project rates will settle into a healthy range of 6-7% in the next year or so. While we got kinda used to those crazy low rates the historic average is around 8% - so our current rate situation is actually good. Depending on your situation, now may be a great time to get make that move.