March 2018 RSS Feed

 Orange County Housing Report:  Wait and Afford Less

With rising interest rates, purchasing power drops for buyers considerably the longer they wait.

 Purchasing Power: An increase in interest rates by 1% translates to an 11% drop in the home a buyer is able to afford.

For the past several years, experts and prognosticators across the country had been calling for increasing interest rates. Yet, it never really materialized. To many it was reminiscent of Chicken Little’s, “THE SKY IS FALLING!!” Sure interest rates had their ups and downs, but, in the end, they consistently dropped back down to historical lows, below 4%. That is, until this year.

With the election of President Trump in November 2016, interest rates rose significantly,…

Orange County Housing Report:  Too Much Noise

Everybody seems to have an opinion about the direction of the housing market.

Ignore the Noise: From talk of a housing bubble to speculation that the market will slow because of higher rates, the best advice is to ignore all of the noise and turn to the facts.

Wow! There is a lot of talk and speculation about the housing market these days. Some people are convinced that housing is a bubble and it will implode, dropping more than it did during the Great Recession. Yikes, interest rates have reached 4.5%, it must mean the end of the housing run is near. On a live video, one real estate professional warned that the market will turn this autumn stating that a downturn occurs every 10-years. Some…