I guess it's the human condition - buyers always want to wait until "the market hits bottom" before taking that big step of making an offer. To a person, every real estate expert I've ever heard says the problem with that thinking is that you never know you've hit bottom until the prices are already going up.
Right now, though, we are seeing an amazing opportunity for buyers whether it's the bottom or not. With home prices at their lowest in years and interest rates at historic lows the affordability factor is remarkable.
NAR economists predict that the interest rate will be close to 6% in 2012. You don't have to be a mathematician to see how quickly a rising interest rate would make a significant difference in the monthly carrying cost.
At the current interest rate of 4.375 a mortgage of $400,000 will result in a monthly payment of $1,852. By the time the interest rate moves to the 5.9% predicted that same loan will cost $2,372. Wouldn't you rather be saving that $500/month or even spending it on a little more house? At today's rate $2,372 will pay for a $500,000 mortgage (with a little left over!)
How about that - you can buy $500,000 worth of mortgage today for the same monthly payment as a $400,000 mortgage in 2 years.
Think about it.
