Why sell your home now?

Are we off the bottom? Should I sell now? Are home values up?

These are just a few of the many questions that we hear daily these days. It is important to make decisions based on real data and while we aren’t professional writers (clearly), we are going to do our best to address many of “today’s” questions with facts.

Fact 1 – the data says that we are off the bottom. For the first time in many years we have shown consecutive growth for the last 6 months straight as of May 31, 2013.

Fact 2 – Home inventory has shrunk considerably which has created more buyers than sellers thus creating a sellers’ market.

Fact 3 – As a result of a seller’s market we are seeing a steady increase in home values. We are seeing full price offers, bidding wars on homes listed for sale and up to 100% of list price in many market segments.

Fact 4 – Lenders are loosening up and rates are at an ALL TIME low.

What does all of this mean? In short, the time is NOW!

Still not convinced? Let’s run a couple scenarios:

Move up seller – you are at a stage in your life where you can afford a bigger, nicer dream home.

Your current home is valued at $200,000 and you have your eye on your new dream home which is listed at $350,000.

Objection – I don’t want to sell my house until the market goes up a little more so I can get max dollar!

Reality – Let’s say the market values appreciate 5%. This would mean you would get $10,000 more for your house or $210,000. BUT it would also mean that your dream home has now appreciated also and is suddenly valued at $367,500…. By waiting you have cost yourself an additional $7,500. This doesn’t even take into account what the rate would have gone up to by waiting. Each 1% in your mortgage rate affects your buying power by 10% of the purchase price.

Contrasting current rates vs. future rates – in this example we are going to use 3% vs. 4%

Let’s say you decided to wait for your home to appreciate, we have shown above why this isn’t a good idea, but for this example we will say that you waited 1 year. During that 1 year the mortgage rates went from 3% to 4%. Remember we said that your dream home was priced now at $350,000. Well by waiting a year your buying power went from $350,000 to $325,000 because of the rate increase, not to mention your dream home is suddenly priced at $367,500.

To summarize, timing is everything and the time is NOW!!!

Chris and Nicole Dufala
Dufala Realty Group @ Keller Williams
727-800-HOME