4 Reasons for Buying Monrovia Homes Now that Fall is Here

 Throughout the country, spring and summer are when the most serious house hunting takes place. Springtime is, after all, the season when it just feels right to undertake major initiatives—and buying Monrovia homes certainly falls into that category.  

But if your own school or work calendar doesn’t dictate the timing, there are some good reasons why putting it off until next year may not be in your best interest. Here are four worth considering:

1. Wealth-building. If you are now renting, the sooner a portion of your monthly housing spend begins to go toward building equity for your own account, the better. All those TV commercials about starting early to save for retirement are reminders of the same immutable truth.
2. Home loans. The arithmetic is straightforward: when it comes to mortgage payment amounts, low interest rates represent huge long-term savings. Currently, they remain in the historically favorable range—but they’re projected to rise. No one knows the precise timing, but most experts expect it to be soon.
3. Investment wisdom. It’s such an investors’ commonplace that it almost sounds silly to say it out loud—yet “buy low, sell high” is easier said than done because it runs counter to how the crowd is behaving. With the economy and wages surging, most experts expect U.S. home buyers to face a continuation of the slow and steady rise in housing prices—in which case acting now makes investment sense.
4. Market. It is often the case that when the hottest Monrovia home-buying season has passed, sellers whose homes have not yet sold may become more eager to sell—and more flexible in general.

Saturday brought fall to Monrovia, but it might also have brought the best season for buying your next Monrovia home, especially given the range of listings currently being offered right now. Give me a call to discuss investigating what’s out there!  

What can Monrovia Real Estate Expect in 2019?

 Monrovia homeowners who had to decide whether or not to put their home on the market this year have had an easy time sizing up the real estate Big Picture. Across the country, prices have been rising steadily but moderately. Sales may be down, but that’s because too few properties are being offered. And the financing picture remains favorable.

Putting it all together, the prices news is good for sellers, the lack of inventory is less good news for buyers—while the low home loan rates is good news for both buyers and sellers. That combination may be a little muddled, but is certainly encouraging for sellers. The big question about the future is what’s likely to change in the coming year?

The single individual who is probably best situated to make the most educated guess about that is Dr. Lawrence Yun, the National Association of Realtors’ Chief Economist and often-quoted soothsayer. He speaks in the guarded words that Chief Economists tend to favor, but at this summer’s end, his projections were more than usually sure-footed.

Long story short for the three trends that have defined the past few years’ markets:

• Price increases at heated levels will self-limit: in 2019, expect price growth to moderate (in the sustainable neighborhood of 3.5%).
• The years-long trend of seeing “too few” properties hitting the market should soften: in 2019, anticipate a rise in inventory.
• Reversing the 2018 sales level slump, 2019 overall sales are projected rise by 2%.

Those predictions make for a rosy picture—particularly for Monrovia observers who recall the aftermath of overheated price and sales levels. Dr. Yun sounded notes of confidence for them, expecting the hottest local markets to moderate not from weak buyer demand, but because of insufficient supply. With mortgage default and foreclosure rates near historic lows, the bottom line of his forecast comes with the reassurance that concerns that the housing market may have peaked—and be headed for a significant slowdown—are “unfounded.”

Getting a clear picture of how your own home might expect to perform if and when it joins the Monrovia listings depends on more than just the temperature of the Monrovia real estate market over the coming year. Call me for a truly no-obligation consultation to discuss more specifics Monrovia homeowners should expect in 2019!   

Friday’s Mortgage Rate News Extends Monrovia’s Winning Streak

The Mortgage News Daily gives the home loan industry’s workaday professionals something to read with their first cup of coffee. It catches them up on the latest numbers from the previous day’s activity and provides a running commentary on the why’s and what next?’s for mortgage issuers.

Friday’s edition gave Monrovia homeowners, soon-to-be homeowners, and those soon to be home sellers ample reason to head into the Labor Day weekend with renewed confidence in the current state of affairs. Friday’s lead headline in the MND provided the reason: “Mortgage Rates End Week Near Best Levels.”

The opening sentence began, “Mortgage rates caught a break…” and went on to explain that an array of underlying reasons continues to prevent home loan rates from rising. That extends a near-freeze in the low rates that has recently prevailed. Despite widespread expectations that home loan payments would rise throughout this year, rates have actually moved downward since April.

And lately?

Yawn.

Commentator Matthew Graham summarized the plight of journalists who cover the loan industry: “If You Like Boring,” his headline read, “You’re in Luck!”  “Mortgage rates didn’t move at all again today,” he groused. “If we broaden our definition of ‘sideways’ just a bit, we can legitimately fit most of 2018 into the same conversation.”

Monrovia home buyers and sellers might commiserate with the writer’s creative distress—but not so heartily that they would wish it otherwise. As long as the current Monrovia mortgage rates stay mired in the lower half of the historical range, they result in the kind of more affordable monthly payment quotes that widen the ranks of eligible buyers. It means nothing but good news, too, for Monrovia home sellers—and another sound reason to give me a call!