Home buyers are in luck after facing hardships purchasing a home after the COVID-19 pandemic due to inflation.
Prices began to fall in Autumn, giving hope to potential home buyers. The spring is a difficult time of year to purchase a home because this is the season when prices surge, but interest rates haven’t changed.
“When we look at the major counties we tracked, New York City, got hit the worst, down 29%. Suffolk County down 18%, Westchester down 18.8%, and Nassau County down 21%. Home prices also started to fall a little bit across most of those counties,” Caleb Silver, of Investopedia, told News 12 Long Island.
This significant decrease in prices was predicted by top economists back in September.
While top economist Ian Shepherdson believed house prices would decrease due to the desperation of homeowners, a local real estate broker disagreed.
“Anytime interest rates rise, prices of homes go down. We were in a market where buyers were offering well over asking for homes due to extremely low rates,” Jacqueline Clancy, Real Estate Broker at Daniel Gale Sotheby’s and Regional Manager of sales in Stony Brook, told The Messenger in September.
Dennis Young, 26, is a local Mortgage Loan Officer and says homebuyers should get out and take advantage of these remarkably low prices.
“This opens a fantastic opportunity for today’s homebuyers in that they will save a ton on the price, not be subject to bidding wars and own an asset that is projected to increase in value by at least 5% a year over the next 10 years or so,” Young said.
“Plus, rates are projected to drop to 4.5% by 2024, so they will have the opportunity to [refinance] into a much better payment,” Young added.
What does this mean for sellers?
“It is still a good time to list your house, I understand the sellers are starting to fear that they might have missed out or another opportunity is on the rise, but we are in the opportunity right now and I’m not sure how far it will last,” Clancy told The Messenger on Wednesday.
“Even though rates have increased and inventory is low, buyers are out there driving up the prices. I feel that in the spring we will be back to a regular seasonal market with more competition and lower offers,” she added.
