Tuesday, 31 October 2023
Buy Now or Later? One would think this is a loaded question, but it isn’t. I’m actually writing this thinking ‘how am I making the answer to this question a whole blog post?’ Here’s my long winded answer in the form of a hopefully entertaining story.
The short answer to ‘when is it a good time to buy a house?’ is to buy when you can afford it. It’s that simple. If you have the income, you got your pre approval and you’re ready to be a homeowner, then go buy a house. Who should you listen to? Honestly, the first person you should listen to is yourself. You’ll know when you’re ready. Then, go get yourself a top notch real estate agent and heed their expert advice and guidance. Make sure they’re someone who is interested in finding you the right home in your budget who knows the area and the market conditions. Make sure you tell them honestly what you want and where you want it to be. With open communication and trust, you’ll own a home in no time.
They say when you’re trying to drive a point home, you wrap it in a story. Well, it’s story time friends. ;) Sit back and let me tell you the story of a homeowner named “Amanda”.
When Amanda was a little girl, she always dreamed of what her house would look like when she grew up. She imagined a big property that had rolling hills and there was a forest attached with cute animals she could watch from the windows. She imagined it would be a big house, maybe two or more stories and she’d have her choice of rooms she could sleep in, it would be that big! She would live there with her guy and a couple of little dogs. They would have a dining room where they would have family dinners on Sundays, and her neighbours would be super friendly people who would wave hello when they saw her. Amanda did not live in a land far, far away. She lived right here, in Niagara!
When Amanda grew up to be old enough to buy a house, she and her boyfriend started looking for one to buy. Then, they started imagining together how it would be: they would look in the newspaper (yes, Amanda is old enough now that people looked at newspaper ads to find a house for sale instead of on the internet), they would drive around in neighbourhoods where they wanted to live, in search of ‘for sale’ signs. They talked about the kind of house they wanted to buy, and thankfully they wanted the same thing. They both wanted the kind of house that Amanda always dreamed about. They even asked Amanda’s parents if they knew a good real estate agent who could help them.
The day came when Amanda and her boyfriend went to the bank to see how much money they could borrow to get a house. It turned out that they couldn’t get the money they needed to get the house they wanted. They decided to keep renting their little bungalow in order to save up enough money to buy their dream house. They soon realized it would take forever to save up enough money for the house of their dreams while they were also paying rent. It quickly became apparent that they should get what they could afford or they might not be able to buy anything.
They learned that they could afford a cute little two bedroom home on a decent size property that was also in a good 
neighbourhood. They were advised by Amanda’s parents who bought their house 27 years prior that they ‘have to start somewhere’. Amanda’s mom told her when they bought their first house, it cost them about $50,000. Now, it was worth about $200,000. (This was about 20 years ago so don't get excited). As long as they take care of the house, it should increase in value AND they can use the equity to buy the dream house down the road. They were reminded of how proud of themselves they should be for even being able to buy a home at all. Amanda and her boyfriend couldn’t argue with that.
They ended up buying a super cute little place and spent twenty years there! That’s fifteen years longer than Amanda wanted to stay there, but that’s another story. They bought that house for $67,500. At the time, a home of that sort was worth about $70,000-75,000 so they did good. They got a bit of a deal because it needed some updating. Fast forward twenty years. Because they made improvements, and took care of the property and the home, they sold it for $520,000 AND ended up buying a house pretty close to what they wanted in the first place.
The moral of the story is: if Amanda and her boyfriend would have waited for rates to come down, or prices to come down, or to be in a better place financially, or etc, etc, etc…they would have not been able to buy a home a few years later. They used the equity in their first home to buy the next one. They bought a home as soon as they could afford it. They made sure their mortgage was always paid and it worked out in the end.
There’s a saying that you have to have all of your dreams come true so you can find out that they weren’t your dreams after all. Who says the home you had a dream about is your dream home? Amanda spent the best years of her life in a house with two bedrooms and was a total of about 800 square feet. She loved it there. The second home she and her boyfriend ended up buying didn’t have rolling hills or a forest behind it, but it had the space they needed for the next phase of their lives together.
Do it while you can. When you’re ready, give me a call and let’s chat about what you’re looking for.
