Do Your Part to Fix the Economy, Buy a Home!

But seriously!   Everyone has to live somewhere.   Buy the place you live in,if you are able.   If not, buy a place that someone else is dying to live in and become a landlord.    Real estate is a decent investment.   Since the recession of 2008, the U.S. economy and real estate market have been slowly but surely recovering. Home ownership in the country, however, has been and continues to decline.   A 50 year low!   The experts that have the most to lose if they get it wrong are the realtors.   According to the NAR (national association or realtors),  the  top five reasons for the decline in the U.S. homeownership rate:

1.   Ever-increasing student debt (affects mainly millennials);
   
2. Financial Decision-Making Altered Post-Foreclosure (mostly pre-millennials, approximately 9 million of them!, have a sort of financial PTSD from experiencing foreclosure that makes them less likely to take on the risks of homeownership again);
3. Unaffordability of Single-Family Housing (affects all potential homeowners – low inventory, high single family detached home prices, the construction boom in China that diverted and drove up the cost of much of the planet’s construction materials, and the difficulty of saving up for a down payment);
4. Plummeting Single-Family Home Construction.  (Single-family home construction isn’t keeping pace with increased demand. Construction costs are up, skilled labor is scarce, and there are property lots are expensive. Without new home construction, the U.S. homeownership rate cannot increase):

5. Accessibility of Mortgages  (Because of well meaning sentiment to make the American Dream of homeownership available to everyone (see the Community Reinvestment Act), loans were probably to easy to obtain prior to 2007.  In a classic knee-jerk reaction, loans have now been made too difficult to obtain.  There is an intelligent middle ground that will help the economy and increase the home ownership rates.

We love consulting with potential homebuyers in the Virginia market and have a pretty good handle on markets in Williamsburg, Chesapeake, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Hampton, Newport News, Suffolk, the Eastern Shore, the Northern Neck, and surrounding counties.  Let us be a sounding board for you and whether home ownership will work for you either as an investment, or to provide you a tax advantaged place to live, or both!