I heard a report yesterday on the local business radio station here in town that said mortgage applications nationwide were down by 9% in the last month. Wow, that scared me a little and I called my two main mortgage brokers and both said that, overall, yes with the rates climbing, that applications were down.

One even said that I was the only one to send her any clients in the last month. I actually sent her 4 to get pre-approvals on. She told me that she was amazed at the negativity and she also said that I was the only one that always seemed to be positive on the phone with her.

She says that despite interest rates every one of my buyers was cheerful and happy to be looking. I asked her what she thought the difference was and she thought it was the fact that I pointed out that historically we still have really low interest rates. We don't have 19% interest rates like in the early 80s or 10% like we did, just 10 years ago.

She said your buyers realize that they easily could go back up to that and are happy to pay 6.5% when I show them how much they are losing by paying rent versus owning a home. She said it is a different market and you educate your buyers to that and I think they realize that the world is changing again and if they buy now they will be the ones that win in the end.

You see I think that the people that bought houses in 1977 when interest rates were ok and house prices were low made a lot of money in the early 80s when interest rates started to climb, as well as prices. My parents bought their first home for $60,000 at 12% interest and in 1981 that home was worth $120,000. If they had chosen to, they could have sold it on owner financing at 15% and people would have been happy to pay it because it was still 4% cheaper than a lot of the banks were offering at the time.

Financial freedom can be reached through home ownership, and time and time again the market will adjust, but in the long run, it seems to always go up! If you are a buyer, now and even later, it will always be a good time to buy real estate. If you give me a call today, I can sit down with you and show you all the reasons you should buy today!



Todd Clark - broker
Kastings & Associates
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739