Keith Bailey Realtor Florida Real Estate Blog

  Over the past year, a lot of people have been talking about  housing affordability  and how tight it’s gotten. But just recently, there’s been a little bit of relief on that front. Mortgage rates have gone down since their most recent peak in October. But there’s more to being able to  afford a home  than just mortgage rates. To really understand home affordability, you need to look at the combination of three important factors:  mortgage rates, home prices, and wages . Let’s dive into the latest data on each one to see why affordability is improving. 1. Mortgage Rates Mortgage rates  have come down in recent months. And looking forward, most experts expect them to  decline further  over the course of the year. Jiayi Xu, an economist at  Realtor.com ,  explains : “While there could be some fluctuations in the path forward …  the general expectation is that mortgage rates will continue to trend downward , as long as the econom...

  If you’ve owned your house for at least a  couple of years , there’s something you’re going to want to know more about – and that’s home equity. If you’re not familiar with that term,  Freddie Mac   defines  it like this: “. . . your home’s equity is  the difference between how much your home is worth and how much you owe on your mortgage .” That means your equity grows as you pay down your home loan over time and as  home values climb . While it’s true  home prices  dipped slightly last year, they  rebounded  and have been climbing in many areas since then. Here’s why that price growth is good news for you. In the latest  Equity Insights Report , Selma Hepp, Chief Economist at  CoreLogic , explains: “ With price gains continuing to help homeowners build wealth, equity has reached a new high and regained losses that resulted from declines last year . And while the average U.S. homeowner gained over $20,000 in additional ...