My fiancée and I recently purchased a house. Here’s the story…
On the first Sunday in February, I called up an old friend from high school who works as a mortgage broker to get pre-approved. That evening, we met with an acquaintance to discuss her becoming our realtor.
I kicked this process off just 3 months into our lease agreement because I could see mortgage rates were starting to tick up and I projected that to get worse. As it turns out, not only was that true, they skyrocketed in just a couple of months.
After 11 ½ weeks and 6 unsuccessful offers, we were finally under contract on a house. I had been scouring Realtor.com and Zillow every day. I had too. If you weren’t able to see a newly listed house a day or two after it was posted, you weren’t getting the house (you probably weren’t going to win the bid anyway).
The craziness of this housing market – and mine in particular (Tampa, widely reported as the hottest in the country) – is a hot topic in the news. The discussion over whether we are in a bubble or not rages on.
What I am pondering
- Knowing that we are observing (and some of us participating in) a real-time economics case study of demand outstripping housing supply, at what point do higher mortgage rates cool this market off? House prices in my area have shown little moderation of increases despite 6% mortgages.
- How financially healthy are U.S. consumers? Some experts believe that the consumer is still solid financially and that there are perhaps several more months of runway left on their spending capacity.
- With the Fed behind the curve on taming inflation (some of it within their control, much of it outside), will we see a recession following the rate hikes? If we do experience a recession, will we see a so-called “soft landing” with little to no job losses? Would it be a fairly short downturn?
- Every financial market is getting hammered. Stocks, bonds, crypto, you name it. How long will that persist?
These are certainly difficult times with more questions than answers.
Buckle up and fortify your finances!