Owning a home has long been part of the American dream. But for many prospective buyers, that dream is becoming harder to reach.<\/p>\n
The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate is now around 7%, and higher borrowing costs are affecting homebuyers nationwide.<\/p>\n
According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, mortgage applications have dropped 19% nationwide compared with a year ago.<\/p>\n
But Tiffanie Bailey-Romey, president of the Pocono Mountains Association of Realtors, says she isn’t seeing the same decline in the local market. Instead, she’s seeing more hesitation among buyers.<\/p>\n
“I think people have a lot of anxieties when it comes to a lot of things that are happening,” Bailey-Romey said.<\/p>\n
“We’re looking at the fact that food has gone up, insurance has gone up, interest rates have gone up,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
The buyers feeling the most pressure, she says, are those shopping in the $250,000 to $400,000 range.<\/p>\n
For those buyers, higher interest rates can leave less wiggle room for other rising expenses.<\/p>\n
But mortgage rates aren’t just affecting buyers. They’re also contributing to inventory.<\/p>\n
“A lot of sellers don’t want to leave what they already have,” said Bailey-Romey. “I’ve already have that as an interest rate, I’m not trying to move.”<\/p>\n
There is one potential benefit to higher rates: they are helping to keep home prices from rising as quickly as they have in past years.<\/p>\n
Bailey-Romey says buyers should consider the long-term picture when deciding whether to purchase a home now.<\/p>\n
Her advice: “Marry the house, date the rate.”<\/p>\n
“So, you can still purchase a home now, and then when the rates change, you could think about what a refinance will be,” Bailey-Romey said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Owning a home has long been part of the American dream. But for many prospective buyers, that dream…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[214,119,121,120,28],"class_list":["post-288579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-pennsylvania"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}