 TITLE: Should I Wait to Buy a House? CONTENT: Consider the Current Housing Market\n-----------------------------------\nYour local housing market will play a big role in whether you decide to buy a home. It's influenced by a number of factors that can have a direct impact on homebuyers. These include:\n*   **Mortgage rates**: When the cost of borrowing money falls, mortgage loan costs generally go down in kind. The opposite is also true. Mortgage rates hit an all-time low during the pandemic thanks in no small part to the Federal Reserve slashing its target interest rate. These lower rates enticed buyers to flood the housing market and snatch up cheaper mortgages. At the time of this writing, weekly average rates for 30-year and 15-year fixed mortgages were both still under 3%.\n*   **Housing inventory**: When fine-tuning your timeline for buying a home, low housing inventory could make it difficult to find a property that meets your expectations. You'll also be up against fiercer competition from other buyers when there's less to choose from. On the flip side, if inventory is plentiful, you could find yourself in a buyer's market. As of March 2021, housing inventory was down 28.2% compared with the same month in 2020, according to the National Association of Realtors. What's more, property took just 18 days to sell on average. This is all evidence of low supply and high demand.\n*   **Home prices**: The national median home price in April 2021 was 17% higher than it was a year earlier—reaching a record-breaking $375,000, according to Realtor.com data. No one knows for certain if and when home prices will fall again, but prospective homebuyers are watching closely. Some may choose to wait until prices (hopefully) come down; others may feel a sense of urgency to make a purchase before prices get any higher.\nBallooning home prices, a reduction in inventory and low interest rates have created a hot housing market during the pandemic, attracting an influx of cash buyers and real estate investors. Meanwhile, more Americans are moving, thanks in part to the explosion of remote work. A recent Neighbor.com survey found that 20% more people are planning on moving in 2021 when compared with 2020. This is all to say that a number of factors come into play when deciding whether to buy a home. END