re: “Rates will come down, just re-fi then.” Why do people keep saying this in today’s world?

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Over the life of the loan, you'd be better off mathematically eating the 10k and giving them full asking but getting your rate bought down.

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I think these builder buydowns are only for like 3 years.

I’m both a realtor and old.

I don’t tell a soul that, because it’s stupid. Yes, there are a lot of worthless leeches in my business, trust me I know better than you about that. I get to clean up a lot of their messes.

What I tell them, and have been for a while now is make the decision based on your costs. Rates are going to stay like this most likely for years. I expect we’ll get a bump down around the election to try and swing some votes, but I expect that to be temporary.

Can you buy now? Sure, but you have to be a lot smarter than a couple years ago about that.

(Rant on)

The single thing that sets me off more than anything else is the old “the inspection will let you know if there are problems” particularly now. If interest rates are making the budget tight, where do you expect to find the money for repairs? The moment a realtor tells you that, get another one. If it’s an older home that hasn’t been renovated and they can’t tell you at least a half dozen potential issues by looking at it they’re useless

(Rant off)

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“Rates will come down, just re-fi then.” Why do people keep saying this in today’s world?

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Because they’re in sales and make a commission

The real answer to this question is - life happens. People get married, people have kids, old people die, young people die, people win the lottery. All kinds of things impact the real estate market. Regardless of where the FED believes real estate rates should be, all those things mentioned above continue to happen and require people to buy or sell.

We've got a lot of really spoiled people that saw the 2-3% rates and think they are going back to that level. I'm not sure we'll ever see that again. Maybe....but I doubt it. The first house I bought in 2004 was at like 7%, the second house I bought was at like 6.5%.(I'm at 2.625% today) Both were good rates that the time. Reality is that we're closer to historical norms today than we were in the fall of 2021/spring of 2022.

It is what it is. Buy what you can afford and stop stressing over the rates.

No one knows.

But the 34 trillion in national debt has caught up with us. Half the money ever printed in the history of the USA has been printed since 2020. I highly doubt we ever see 2s and 3s in our lifetime. Might get back to the 5s.

The typical real estate agent is amongst the dumbest human beings on the planet. Yet we trust them with what for most people their biggest purchase. A lot of realtors are going to be headed back to school, a secretary job, or the pole pretty soon.