sub-6% rates<\/a> would be the quickest way to bring cautious buyers back into the market, so sellers are hoping the ceasefire will stabilize rates. Until then, for buyers, the ever-shifting rates mean that even with more leverage, it still doesn\u2019t feel like a buyer\u2019s market.<\/p>\n\u201cFebruary was brutal because we thought we were in a buyer\u2019s market. Lots of properties had been sitting since the fall,\u201d said Ashley Moorhead, a lawyer who\u2019d been shopping for homes since December. \u201cBut rates dipped just before the war, and everyone seemed to come out all at once to bid for homes that had been on the market for over 20 days.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moorhead said for every house she bid on, there were at least four other offers. In one case, she was outbid for a home in Pasadena by $225,000.<\/p>\n
Her ideal budget was $1.25 million. She ended up spending $1.39 million.<\/p>\n
Depending on how you look at it, Moorhead got lucky. She locked in a 5.99% mortgage rate right before the war started. Had she waited a month, the rate would\u2019ve been 6.5%. But had the war never started in the first place, she said, it could\u2019ve been 5.75% or lower.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not optimistic rates will go down,\u201d Moorhead said. \u201cI think time in the market beats timing the market.\u201d<\/p>\n
Real estate agent Matthew Hoult said the spring market has been slow for a handful of reasons. For buyers, affordability is king, and many are second-guessing what they can afford if rates spike. For sellers, many have the \u201cgolden handcuffs\u201d of low interest rates locked in during the pandemic, so they\u2019re not incentivized to move.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not as simple as supply and demand because there\u2019s plenty of pent-up demand,\u201d Hoult said. \u201cLots of people want to buy a house, especially Millennials and Gen Z, but there\u2019s so much uncertainty over mortgage rates and cost of living that they\u2019re being picky.\u201d<\/p>\n
He had two clients lock in a 6.1% mortgage rate in December. If they waited until the spring, they would\u2019ve been paying $200 more per month on a million-dollar loan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe frustrating part is nobody really knows when this settles. Oil could stabilize, tensions could ease, but there\u2019s no crystal ball,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve seen people wait for better rates and end up paying more six months later because prices kept climbing while they sat on the sidelines.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said for some, the suspended state of the market could be an opportunity, pointing to a famous Warren Buffett quote: \u201cBe fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNow\u2019s the time to find deals. Use the war for leverage,\u201d Hoult said, urging buyers to ask for concessions from sellers tired of waiting for more buyers to emerge. \u201cAsk them to cover fees, buy down the rate or for a lower sale price.\u201d<\/p>\n
Real estate agent Daniel Milstein said the market is already picking back up, but sales numbers don\u2019t show it yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a clear disconnect between what people are reading in public data and what is actually happening on the ground,\u201d he said. \u201cMost widely cited housing metrics lag reality by 30 to 60 days, meaning the narrative many are reacting to today is already outdated.\u201d<\/p>\n
He cites as evidence new escrows, which don\u2019t record as sales until they close weeks or months later. According to his colleague at an escrow company, Milstein said, new escrows have increased up to 50% in markets across L.A. County in the last few weeks compared with the month prior.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause most of the current activity exists in escrow and has not yet closed, it\u2019s not reflected in public records. In the next two to four weeks, we expect to see a noticeable influx of recording transactions,\u201d he said. \u201cIn other words, the market is already moving \u2014 people just haven\u2019t seen it yet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Katie Davis has whiplash. A longtime renter, she\u2019s in the market for her first ever home, but she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[117151,59769,3785,217,1073,93309,8161,48,52,51,7036,47,50,49,5990,3906,117150,49454,592,7790,75990],"class_list":{"0":"post-268902","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ashley-moorhead","9":"tag-buyer","10":"tag-ceasefire","11":"tag-day","12":"tag-home","13":"tag-iran-war","14":"tag-l-a-county","15":"tag-la","16":"tag-la-headlines","17":"tag-la-news","18":"tag-last-year","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","21":"tag-los-angeles-news","22":"tag-market","23":"tag-month","24":"tag-more-sale","25":"tag-mortgage-rate","26":"tag-people","27":"tag-real-estate-agent","28":"tag-seller"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}