Moving from Renting to Buying With Aimee Dodson

It used to be almost universally true that, at least in the short term, it was cheaper to rent a home than to buy one. But that’s not necessarily the case today. Aimee says some markets are seeing a staggering increase in rent. 

Limited supply is one of the factors that has driven up both rental and purchase prices in recent years. She says, “Part of it is the fact that there's a continually rising number of what they call new home creations, which are new people needing to buy homes. And the pace of building is not keeping up with that.” 

Also, after COVID, many people learned that they could work remotely from home, so during and after the pandemic, we saw a surge in people buying second homes. Those are two of the factors that have impacted the inventory shortage.

So what steps should you take if you’re considering buying a home? 

First of all, check into first-time homebuyer programs, and downpayment assistance programs to see if you qualify. 

Also, talk to a loan officer who can run your credit, talk about your credit profile, and discuss your long-term goals and strategies. They can provide you with next steps on what you need to do to position yourself to be able to buy a home.

While rates are higher now than they were not long ago, historically speaking, they’re still relatively low. So there is an opportunity to get in now if you’re financially prepared to buy. And there probably isn’t a point in waiting around for home prices to fall, because experts largely seem to consider that to be unlikely to happen anytime soon, given that demand continues to outstrip supply in the housing market.