In this episode of the Stephen Cooley Real Estate Show, Julie Storm joins Stephen to give you a mid-year Charlotte NC real estate market update, since we’re in the middle of 2017.
Interest rates are going up, and if you’re going to buy a home, it’s probably a really good time to do so. On the other hand, if you’ve had your home on the market in the past and it has not sold, now it’s the best time to sell your house.
Watch this recent episode below:
Prefer to read? Here are the transcripts of the video:
(Please excuse spelling and grammar errors)
STEPHEN: Hello. I’m Stephen Cooley and welcome to the Stephen Cooley Real Estate Show and, as always, an honor to have Julie Storm on the show with me.
JULIE: Thank you, pleasure.
STEPHEN: Thank you for co-hosting this show for over 15 years with me Julie. It’s been really good too. Been fun giving people market updates, and what I wanted to do today was just give everybody kind of a market update since we’re in the middle of 2017.
JULIE: Can you believe that?
STEPHEN: A half year’s behind us and half the year still in front of us. Lots of people out there moving, some of them buying their first home – about 38% of buyers right now are first-time home-buyers.
It’s interesting when millennials buy, they’re buying homes totally differently. When my generation bout, your generation bout..They’re buying a home by themselves or buying a home with their friends. Parents are assisting in that first purchase. There’s some low down payment plans out there and no down payment plans where they as long as they’ve got good credit they can get a home, so it’s a great opportunity. Rent has really gone up.
JULIE: Yeah. I was reading some articles about that, I’m in Charlotte metro area, that the rent is continually increased.
STEPHEN: Yeah,rent has doubled almost in the last five years in most of the Charlotte metro area and while interest rates shold stay low, you know interest rates are the primary factor in what it costs to buy a home. A 1% increase in interest rates is just like a 10% increase in the price of the house. It’s the same thing to your budget.
JULIE: When I first bought my first home, it was a small house, and it was under a $100,000 and the interest rate, I believe, was somewhere around 17% and the payment on that versus even what I’m owning today is..
STEPHEN: Yes, crazy. My first home cost $65,000, interest rates were 13%, my payment was over $1,200 a month and I was 22 years old, so that $1,200 payment now would buy somebody a home that cost them $2,000-$3,000, so great opportunity.
Interest rates have gone up four times in the last year. If you’re watching the news they just went up last year. The prime rate, which is what banks charge banks that always has an effect on mortgages also. Interest rates are going up, and if you’re going to buy, it’s probably a really good time to buy. Most banks will let you lock in for 60 or 90 days. So the rate today, if rates are going up you can go and apply for a loan, lock that loan in, Julie, and that loan will be good for up to 60 or 90 days depending on the loan program and depending on the bank.
This year has been really steady. It’s really a repeat of last year. Buyers are out in full force. They’re having a hard time finding a home and in certain price ranges there’s a shortage of houses and that can be down to the neighborhood or even the street, the elementary school, the zip code, the city.
If you’ve had your home on the market in the past and it has not sold, have us out to reevaluate that because now it could sell. We put a home on the market and we had it on a market a year and a half ago – it did not sell. We put it on the market last week, got three offers in two days. So we’ve got three offers on the home in two days. It’s sold $10,000 over what we were asking, Julie, and the people were paying cash. So there’s no appraisal involved. So that’s the difference in that market for that home.
So if you thought about selling your home, and it did not move in the past give us a call, let us come back out and we’ll figure out if it’ll sell now, what it will sell for. Might be a great time to get that home sold before rates go up higher.
JULIE: One day you talked about home ownership is one of the best investments you can make and I think it’s speaking to the millennial market, renting versus buying is really a smart decision because you’re building on something.
STEPHEN: Yeah, you know, I have a lot of people asking me as a business person should they invest in rental property, should they invest in stocks bonds and again, I’m not an investor, I’m not an investment consultant. I’m a realtor but your primary home is the only investment and investment, in my opinion, is defined on something that increases in value. It’s the only investment that the government assists you in buying. It’s the only investment that someone else will loan you the money to buy. No one’s gonna loan you money to buy stock unless it’s your dad or something so there’s people that were participating in the purchase of it banks and they’ll loan up to 97-100% of the cost of the investment. And then, Julie, it’s the only investment that I know that you get to use and it still goes up.
You don’t use stock while you own them. You don’t use the rental property as you own it, but you use your primary residence, and then the interest rates of a tax write-off, the taxes you pay on the homes of tax write-offs..And there’s a lot of energy-saving things you can do to the home now better tax write-off. So it’s really a great investment, and it’s great to see people who are buying their first home and then when they sell it that’d be the nest egg that launches them throughout the rest of the home purchases. Thank goodness, I bought my first house.
JULIE: Yeah, I feel the same way.
STEPHEN: I still benefit from that to this day. So just a market update. If you’ve got any interest in selling your home or buying home, give us a call here at Stephen Cooley Real Estate Group. We’re here to serve all your real estate needs. Julie, thank you so much for being on today’s show. We’ve got beautiful homes for selling in your area on today’s show please stay tuned for that, and we’ll be right back.
I hope you’ve enjoyed watching the Stephen Cooley Real Estate Show. If you’re interested in advertising your business on the program, please give us a call at 803-326-2777. Join us next week for more discussions on real estate topics and help in finding your perfect home. Thanks for watching.