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4 Things to Consider Before Buying a Home Right Now

Good morning and welcome back. Today, we're talking about four things you can consider before you buy a home right now. Do you want to take it away? 

Real Estate is Always Affected by Movement

Obviously, being in modern times, we're in the middle of a global pandemic that's making the market conditions somewhat interesting. Real estate is always affected by movement, right? And so whether things are moving up or down or if there are massive disruptions to certain segments of, you know, the way that we live, those are all potentially can have an effect on real estate. So right now, given the fact that, you know, this pandemic has completely changed people's lifestyles. Homes are are kind of changing the cities and certainly the city cores were very popular pre pandemic. You were seeing a lot of upward pricing pressure and, you know, just the condo market was kind of getting heated downtown and things like that. That has now changed. So now the suburbs have become very popular and the question behind that is, what's driving that? You know, you and I talked offline. 

2 Things Driving Change 

  1. One, the change in the workspace. But I think something like that you pointed out, too, to consider if you're going out looking for a house and you're basing it on needing more space because of work, if you're younger, there may be a chance that you go back to the office.  And I think that that's kind of one of the first big things, is that for a lot of us, are a lot of people working from home and that transition that has maybe opened up our ability to look elsewhere. However, if you are in a job that, for instance, property management like what we do, where it requires us to be in the office quite a bit and or working from home isn't going to be something that is sustainable over a long period of time. You might find your way back into the office. Yeah. And if you're going to buy a home in Escondido when you work downtown, that's a 40 minute commute you have to consider. Yeah. And traffic will return, I promise you that.  The work the work landscape right now is is changing. So and it's going to be ever changing, I think, for at least the next probably three to five years.  So that's something to really consider before you jump into buying a home. You know, obviously interest rates are really low. The other thing to consider is that inventory is low. 
  2. The other thing, too, is that by buying your house is is not necessarily the answer for everybody. Right. Security is never guaranteed. You know, you've got low inventory right now. You have leaves you with limited options. Yeah. I mean, and and prices are in some cases, prices right now are at all time highs in certain markets. So, for example, in our market right now at the downtown market is somewhat beaten down. But because there's a shortage of inventory, you know, prices are still holding pretty strong, even though it's not maybe necessarily the product type that what people are looking for. Whereas if you go into Rancho Santa Fe, Solana Beach, North County properties, some of the areas that we would consider more, I guess you would say suburban, those areas are on fire and they're anticipating I think I read literally yesterday that San Diego home prices are going to increase by another nine percent this year. 

Is Renting the Better Option?

Renting might be a cheaper option for a lot of people. And it's something that you should definitely consider before you jump in to trying to buy a home even while interest rates are still low. Yeah, hopefully, as movement hopefully continues gaining momentum through twenty, twenty one to leave this pandemic situation, we might see a stabilization of that a little bit. But, you know, the problem with a lot of what's going on right now is just there's not a lot of security with people's jobs, with what's going on in the world. And that's just a big consideration.  

If you're going to buy a house, be ready to buy a house. 

In other words, be planning on staying long term. Don't buy a house just to get into the market because you think it's a good investment. And also don't buy a house if you're thinking about making some kind of a radical change from your living situation or something like that.  Again, unless it's a long term, unless you're planning on it along with a lot of planning, which is probably the biggest purchase you'll ever make. And right now, you know, the two things that, you know, the positive is rates are very low. The negative is inventory also very low and so your selection is going to be low and we would probably say that we're near the top of the market.  

Yes, but, you know, I always preference that is, if you're ready to buy a home now, you definitely should. And we're going to go into our next segment about four reasons why you should buy a home. 

Get ready for that. All right. Thanks for listening.

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