Market of the Moment - 7/29/2022:

[Alan Walker]

'Member when I was sounding like a broken record about low interest rates and low inventory? Yea, it's kind of like that but in opposite world. 

The Fed just announced another .75% increase in the prime rate (that isn't an exact correlation to mortgage rates but its heavily influencing it).

Our inventory continues to increase, almost at 1100 single family homes under 700,000 in Salt Lake County, at this pace we may be closer to 1250 by the end of August. For context, we were under 200 in January.Days on market are finally showing up. 

One thing to note is that I am doing this on a 7 day look-back (kind of why its market of the MOMENT). Which means, it's the average days on market in that price range that closed in the last 7 days. It will undoubtedly conflict with a monthly or quarterly number of average days on market because the pool of homes is smallest at 7 days.

Is now a good time to buy real estate? Well, it depends on what you're trying to accomplish. If you are trying to find a place for you and your family that you plan on living in for 3-5 years, most likely. If you are trying to buy something and sell it in 18 months and expect to get a 20% bump in equity, meh, not so much. And that's okay. Calibration is needed when coming out of such a crazy market cycle. Unless the Great Salt Lake dries out and starts blowing cyanide up and down the Wasatch Front, this is not the end of the world. Long term, a slow down is better for the market.

I feel like I need to be really loud about this. DON'T WAIT FOR THE MARKET TO "BOTTOM OUT". IT DOES YOU NO GOOD TO GET A HOUSE FOR 50,000 LESS IF YOU ARE PAYING 3 TIMES THE INTEREST RATE. 

We all want a deal. Fixating on price as the only lever to make something a deal will get you rekt in our current mortgage climate.