If you are looking to buy a home in Utah right now, you will be met very high interest rates for your purchase. Some people who have owned a home for longer than 20-30 years will tell you tales of 10% or high interest rates when they first bought a home. While interesting, such stories do not bring any relief to the problem at hand - affording a home now. For this post, I am going to cover some strategies to consider to help with your home purchase.

First, let's consider the timing of the market as a whole, not just the interest rates. Buying and selling homes is rarely purely influenced by a single data point, such as interest rates. Many other factors are also at play. Currently, in May of 2024, the average time on market for homes to sell is up significantly from where it was last year, which was also up where from it was the year before that. What that means is while interest rates are high, there is also a lot less compention to purchase homes, which means as a buyer you have more ability to negotiate favorable terms for your purchase. For example, while receiving closing costs as a seller concession was virtually unheard of a couple of years ago, it is now fairly common for offers made today. By considering other market forces at play, you can sometimes work through an unfavorable market statistic like interest rates into a farvorable offer to buy a home.

Second, with interest rates being higher right now than they have been in the past few years, home buyers and sellers are not the only people who have to adapt their offerings in the housing market, but banks do as well. Lending guideliness have cycled through lax requirements to very strict requirements and back to lax requirements repeatedly throughout history. Right now, many lenders are creating new home buying programs to help buyers qualify for and adjust to higher interest rates. If you have not checked in with a lender recently to see what is available for your circumstances, now may be a good time to see what has changed for what they can offer you. 

Lastly, higher interest rates drive buyers out of the market, which means those who remain in the market have less competition. Due to this, many markets in Utah are seeing slows in home sale price growth, which probably helps many would-be home buyers breath a sigh of relief. However, the oppositive will also be true. When interest rates come back down again, the buyers who are on the sidelines will reenter the market and could start a new round of home values skyrocketing.

While no one has a crystal ball to see what will actually happen in the coming months and years, I hope you can at least see that no matter the market realities, there are opportunities to pursue as a home buyer. We are ready to assist you with answering any home buying questions you may have. We also have a team of experts in home buying assembled to help you each step of the way from lenders to home inspectors to title agents to make your home buying experience awesome. Contact us today!