Can you — or should you — buy a house right now? Take our quiz to find out if rising rates and soaring prices will squeeze you out of your dream home.
Buying a home is so traumatic that the process makes half of Americans cry, a Zillow survey found.
Rising mortgage rates, scant inventory, and soaring home prices are hard for house-hunting hopefuls.
Take our quiz to find out if you're financially prepared to buy a house, even in this tough market.
For many, the hottest pandemic purchase has been a house.
In 2020 and 2021, record-low mortgage rates and newfound work-from-home flexibility turbocharged demand for housing, resulting in astronomical price increases and seemingly endless bidding wars.
Driven by the desire to be near family or enjoy a lower cost of living, homebuyers snapped up primary residences and second homes seemingly everywhere — from cities to spacious suburbs to popular vacation spots.
But, more recently, many people are being boxed out of homeownership as the market gets more cutthroat. The competition hasn't let up, judging from home prices that have kept increasing through the first five months of 2022.
The bum rush for properties is occurring even after sharp spikes in the average 30-year mortgage rate, which reached 5.81% as of June 23, according to Freddie Mac.
The good news for potential buyers is that fewer people are now searching for a home, creating more options for those with a bit more flexibility on cost.
Still, it's rough out there: the monthly cost of owning a single-family starter home has surged above the cost of renting one, according to a May report from real-estate consultancy John Burns.
The buying vs. renting calculus is tough. Let us help: Insider has developed a quiz to help you determine if now is the right time for you to buy a home.
Below, plug in your ideal home size, dream home location, and annual income. Select your credit score — there are several free ways to check it. Jot down your monthly debts, which means how many dollars per month you pay out for recurring charges such as student loans or auto leases.
Then see whether prevailing personal-finance advice recommends that you buy — and what your monthly mortgage payments would look like if you do.
Fare thee well.
Zillow provides real-time mortgage rates. Redfin provided regional home-price data by property size as of May 2022.
Taylor Borden contributed to an earlier version of this quiz.
Read the original article on Business Insider
