A GOOD TIME TO BUY (Yes, I Really Think So)

It’s been such an odd year in local real estate: Stop-start. Temperamental. Even illogical. When what most of us expected for 2024 was a return to more normal patterns. But the promise of more interest rate cuts to come (at least one more in December?) seems to be undermining those that have already been announced. Buyers (and therefore sellers) seem to think waiting for the spring makes most sense.

I understand the logic, but what’s also undeniable is that prices have been mostly static for the last eighteen months at least, and the recent interest rate reductions mean that carrying costs have gone down. In spring 2025, as demand increases (all those buyers deciding that the time has come to make a move), prices will surely climb.

Which means there are real, time-sensitive opportunities in the market right now, particularly for first-time buyers, or those who don’t need to sell something to buy something. To repeat myself (I’m getting older; I do it all the time), house prices and borrowing costs are the lowest they’ve been since before the pandemic and that will soon change.