Should You Buy Now?
By Jim Palmer Jr.

The other day I overheard a conversation between
two people concerning their desire to purchase
real estate. One of them stated, “I’m going to wait until the recession hits before I buy a home so I can get a better deal.” This conversation begs the question, “When is a good time to buy or sell real estate?” Anytime is really the answer!

As I thought about this question, it reminded me of the first home I purchased with my wife in the early 1980’s. We were still wet behind the ears as a newlywed couple, but quite happy to be paying the 13% interest on that new mortgage. That sounds crazy when you compare that interest rate to today’s much lower rate! In today’s market,
folks panic as rising interest rates near the 5% mark. Yes, you could make the point that home prices were much lower back in those days, but so were wages and the general economy. It may all be relative.

It’s never easy when you are a first time home buyer, to scratch and save to stretch to reach the maximum of your financial ability to purchase that first home. But, no matter what the economic ebb and flow has been in the past 40 years, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who would tell you it was not worth it and that they should never have purchased their home.

Of course there are episodes of buyer’s remorse, especially as first time buyers adjust to the new responsibility of home maintenance along with that monthly payment. Sometimes it can feel like that debt load will never end; but time passes, values increase, sweat equity enhances gains, and the ability to create more income increases. Before you know it the home owner has been there for years and has accrued a chunk of equity which is usually enough to spring-board them into the next property.

The end of the story above is that we sold that first starter home and used the equity we had gained to purchase property in the country. We were happy about that progress, but in time found out that if we had waited only one more year to sell, that prices had doubled. Even if we had known to wait, we still would have had to buy in the same market. My point is that now is always the best time to buy real estate!