If had a chance to check out The Wall Street Journal. this month, you may have noticed an article titled, “The Housing Crisis is Over”. And if you have been watching the trend in mortgage rates lately, which a good barometer to use is the 10-year Treasury Note, then you may be wondering whether making a real estate purchase sooner than later makes sense.
If you ask Peter Lynch, who was featured in a TIME magazine article in February of this year, he thinks that now is certainly the time to buy.
Whenever anyone asks me whether there is truly a best time to buy, my reply has always been, “Especially in the Bay Area, if your holding period for your home is five years of more, it’s highly likely that buying a primary residence will end up rewarding you well versus renting for that same period.” I have bought at the low (1994), the high (2000) and the middle (2004) and every move rewarded us far better than renting would have…
“But what about the difficulty in obtaining loans in the current market, and that higher down payments are required”, you may ask. Thanks to efforts by Fannie Mae to maintain aggressive programs for qualified buyers, prospective home-buyers in the Bay Area may be eligible to purchase a single-family, owner-occupied home (condo included) up to $768,000 with only 5% down. Efforts like this are also helping to bring stability in the “jumbo” loan market, which serves loans greater than $729,750. For example, a jumbo 5-year fixed mortgage is running in the mid-5% range for qualified buyers…
What’s right for you can be determined by consulting with your trusted real estate and mortgage professional, which I highly recommend you consider.
In the mean time, if you have been waiting for the housing crisis to hit bottom, it’s time to break out the guacamole.
