Should You Buy A Home In Today’s Atlanta Real Estate Market?
Home Purchases Today Are Not For Everyone
In a conversation with a young couple the other day, they asked me whether or not they should purchase a home - in spite of all this talk about falling values and foreclosures in the news.
"Every agent tells us that now is the time to buy," the wife exclaimed, "Who do you believe?"
I don’t have a crystal ball, nor am I a prophet. I can’t tell you what the market will be doing in a few years… but I can tell you what I believe is true.
If you are not buying for the long term - stay out of the market unless you are a very experienced buyer. If you are either buying a primary residence or a new property to use as a rental - then I would encourage you to find the best value and go for it. But if you are thinking of buying and selling withing the next few years - you need to lose that thought, immediately.
I would recommend that you consider a purchase only if you feel confident that you will hold the property for at least FIVE years.
Home ownership carries many benefits - which I won’t go into in this post - but many of those benefits can be stripped away if you sell before you have acquired equity through appreciation.
By only purchasing for the long term - you are much more likely to enjoy the full benefits that home ownership can bring. It’s like the stock market - buying stocks while the market is down is fine, as long as you are a long-term stockholder.
I know that many of my fellow Atlanta agents will disagree…
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The head of Fannie Mae is predicting a slow real estate market spanning through 2009 as indicators such as the Case Shiller report as showing even greater weakness in the market. Daniel Mudd predicts the slowdown lasting longer than many other prognosticators, but interesting enough recognizes that he is guessing as forecasting housing is not an easy job.
The United States real estate market has an inventory problem. When there are over 18 million empty homes across the country we have no reason to continue to build new homes. If this were a logical marketplace we would tell builders to take a 2 year moratorium until absorption met demand.