We are getting close to the end of the year and we had a strong year selling and buying houses in the Twin Cities area. The market was hot and still is very good, though it slows down a little this time of the year. School just started up again and families have settled into their new homes. That said, there are still people out looking for homes to buy now. A question that was asked a few days ago by someone was “are we still in a hot market?” and “where are the home values going?”
Glad you asked 🙂 Take a look at this, this is based on the latest projections from the Home Price Expectations Survey. If someone bought a house this past January at $ 250,000, based on those 100-plus experts that are surveyed for the Home Price Expectations Survey, that is how much that house would increase in value over the next five years. And that’s what makes owning a house so valuable to a family’s net worth. In only five years that family will have an additional net worth of $ 50,000. That is amazing!
Here is the forecasted change in Price for the next year. This is really good news for sellers. For buyers it means that the price for houses will continue to go up. This is because there is a pent up buyer demand and not enough people selling their houses. So for first time home buyers this is the time to buy, waiting doesn’t make sense because interest rates are low and home prices will go up.
The good news for home owner is that they gained home equity. Take a look…
A lot of home owners may not know just how much equity they have gained since last year. Take a look at the numbers below, in MN the average equity from last year til now is $ 11,000.
As if that wasn’t already great news for home owners, it gets better. Here in MN 83.3% of home owners have significant equity. What does that mean, significant equity? Everything over 20% is considered significant equity and more then 83% of Minnesota home owners have this equity. Another thing to consider is that there is a group of people who have no mortgage at all and they are not included in the numbers below. Do you know what your equity is?
Check out the number below, Minnesota home owners gained equity even from the first quarter, 78.7 %, to the second quarter, 83.3%, this year..
The interest rate is still very low, which means if you as a home owner, have a low interest rate and you are worried about the interest rate in case you are selling, don’t worry, it is still very low even lower than it was in January this year.
If you are considering waiting, you may want to take a look at the prediction of where interest rates will go in the future. It will go up and that means you will get less house in the future than you can today.
This is the time to buy because rates came down a little and are still holding for now.
Another thing to consider is, that right now buyer traffic is just a little bit lower than it was in the summer. That is another reason why it is a great time for especially first time home buyers to buy now. There are not as many multiple offers to contend with as there will in just a few short months again. In the summer I have seen and experienced multiple offer situations where people were bidding $ 20,000 and $ 30,000 over list price with no contingencies and still lost out. It will be tough again come spring and summer.
If you have any questions, or would like for me to come over for a few minutes to find out about the equity in your house, please feel comfortable to contact me via email, text or call 612.345.9070. I am happy to help and of course there are no strings attached and no pushy sales pitch 😉