First Time Home Buyers: Time To Buy Your Dream House

First time home buyers are in luck. The housing market is ripe if you know how to play it right. Interest rates are low, federal incentives are available through the rest of the year, while steady inventory of homes remains. Buying a home for the first time while exciting, can be a fairly stressful process. Finding the right home, making an offer, qualifying for a mortgage and moving are all tasks in and of themselves. First time home buyers read on to learn more about current market trends and if you should you buy now?

What to know for first time home buyers:

Overabundance of Choice

Considering the housing market has being in a slump for some time, buyers have quite the inventory to choose from. This surplus includes the homes being sold by owners, but also the brand new homes that were built before the market was inundated with property. In fact, if the first time home buyer takes his or her time and scours all the options available, there are great deals to be had.

Many brand new home builders have been sitting on houses for more than six months and offer lots of upgrades and incentives to purchase a new build that has been sitting empty. They are desperate to sell the homes that have been sitting and are willing to cut major deals.

Other sellers that have been sitting with their homes for sale over the past year or so just want to sell them. They are willing to also offer great incentives such as money towards or paying all closing costs while offering other incentives just to get you to purchase their home. Take your time and really make a list of what you want in a home. The market is now yours so enjoy looking for that perfect home.

Favorable Prices

A trend has emerged this past year: steadily falling home prices. Depending on the area you live in, market prices on homes have dropped to a 4-year low. Houses that were selling and appraised for $500,000 a year ago are on the market for about just over four hundred thousand at this time.

What do these drastic drops in home prices mean to you as a first time home buyer? This means that you are looking in a market where home prices are the same as they were four years ago. This is good news, because once you purchase a home, there really is no other way to go but up in terms of its market value. In the long run, purchasing a home when the market is down will work in your favor. Also keep in mind that many homes have been on the market for awhile so don’t be afraid to negotiate the price with motivated sellers. Remember, when the seller’s market is down, the buyer’s market is right.

Affordable Financing

Finding money for a down payment on a home and figuring out just how you’re going to finance everything is one of the most terrifying aspects of buying a home. It is true that foreclosures are at an all time high, which can be a hindrance to first-time buyers in need of financing, so many first time buyers are using services to make sure their credit is good and have high credit scores before applying. This means that many lenders are not freely handing out mortgages as they did a few years ago. Given the consequences of creative lending that lead to the closures of several major lending companies, banks and lenders alike have adopted more stringent financing practices.

New home buyers will have more opportunities to get a great interest rate on a fixed mortgage loan. A low fixed rate means consistent payments unlike the adjustable rate mortgages that contributed to several foreclosures in the past year. Just make sure that you have done your homework and know what you qualify for before heading out into the housing market, and keeping realistic financial expectations.

If you are a first time home buyer, now is a great time to take advantage of current housing market prices. In addition, you can benefit from the lessons learned from frenzied buying, unmanageable interest rates, and overall poor financing foresight. Enjoy the process and take your time looking for the right home and of course, Happy House Hunting!