Are you buying a house right now? The market is shifting. There’s no question about it here in the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky area. So if you are contacting us looking to buy a house in Cincinnati or Northern Kentucky and you’re looking at the market shifting, you’re having a deal with rising interest rates, but you want to have the best strategy on how to offer on houses that are out there, maybe they’re out there a little bit longer, how should you approach that? How can you get the best deal when you’re buying a house right now for your family? Let’s talk about that.
My name is Eric Sztany from Keller Williams Realty and Teamsztanyo.com where we are helping you find your home and strengthen your family. We are back at it today looking at some houses with some of you, our YouTube clients who found us online. Thanks for subscribing and watching the channel moving here from California to Kentucky or Ohio. Still trying to figure that out. But we went and looked at a bunch of different houses. I wanna talk to you about specifics that we’re seeing on the market to help you make a better decision about buying a house right now in the area.
Tips for Buying a House Right Now
We went and saw a number of houses today and I want to talk through that a little bit. What we’re seeing on the market so you guys can make a good decision for you if you’re looking to buy a house. We saw about five or six houses today and some of the houses we were seeing have been on the market 20, 25, 30 days. One of them was actually on the market in August and then came back on. And I wanna talk you through strategies of buying right now in this market for houses like that have been sitting on the market for a little bit. You’re trying to figure out what’s best for your dollar right now. Obviously, interest rates have gone up and so your monthly payment on the same dollar amount of house from 3, 4, 5 months ago has gone up several hundred dollars.
And so what are you gonna do to offset that? What are some strategies you can take? Well, one advantage you have as a buyer right now in this shifting market, even though interest rates have gone up, is that sellers are a little bit more skittish. What do I mean by that? They know that the activity level is not there. They’re not getting the crazy multiple offers that we saw in the summer. So if they see an offer, if their house has been sitting for that 10, 20, 30 days, it’s very likely that you can get that house at listings price or even possibly below. And so when you’re calculating your overall cost of the house, yes interest rates have gone up, but you need to also factor in the fact that back in May, June, July of this year, you might have had to pay 10, 20, 30 grand over. Whereas now you might be able to get it at at list price 5, 10, 15, 20 below.
Just this weekend I had some clients who came in, trying to buy a house right now in Union Kentucky. We found one that was really nice at $475,000. It had been on the market for a while. It was being sold through a relocation company. We learned that they had already moved out and all of these things when we hear this cuz we met the listing agent at the house. We’re like, “oh, this could be a good opportunity to strike. We might have a motivated seller here.” If they’re moved in somewhere else, they might have two payments right now. Let’s put in a lower offer. We ended up putting an offer in 20k under asked price at $455K expecting the counter offer and they came back and said, accepted. You got it. And they accepted right at $455, which was great for my buyers.
Just to run some quick math on that example, as you’re thinking about buying a house right now. I buy now, or should I wait? how does buying in the shift impact me? How do interest rates impact me? This house we got on our contract was listed at $475,000. So just given, let’s say you’re putting, putting 20% down, you’re getting a 30 year fix at around 7.2. And you know I’ve got property tax and home insurance in here. That payment’s gonna come out to about $3,200 a month. And I understand, you know, if we were back, you know, about a year ago, maybe you could get that for 4.2 and that payment would’ve been $2,500. So a difference of maybe roughly speaking, let’s say $600-$700 a month, something like that. However, you know, the good news on this home was we got it for $455K instead of $475K.
And if we would’ve potentially had to buy this house in the spring or summer, it’s possible we could have got it for $485K to $495K because you had to make that purchase over asked price by 10, 20, 30 maybe and wave inspections as well. So maybe we’ll call that, let’s just be conservative and say we didn’t pay 10 grand over but we got 20 grand under, and we saved $30,000 on the purchase price. So yes, your payment is gonna be 700 bucks more right now because of the interest rates, but let’s just do the math year. 700 times 12 equals okay, $8,400 a year, but let’s do $30,000 divided by $8,400 and you’re looking at a little over three and a half years before there’s kind of a breakeven point just because the market is shifting right now and we were able to get the house at a lower price than the higher price that we had earlier in the year where rates may have been lower. But you had to go over the asking price.
As we shop through these different homes today, it was clear which houses have been on the market for longer and are in a little worse shape versus the one that was our favorite today has been on the market for four days. And we realized, hey, this is price right? It’s in much better condition, the updates are there and this will go faster. And so we can feel that out. We’re gonna help you feel that out as you were working through the market. If you get to see multiple homes, it’s a good thing cuz you can say, oh this one, yeah, it’s price lower, it’s a deal. But then you need to also factor in, do you need to put in 10, 20, 30 K to get it updated to where you want it versus another home? And you can tell when you’re walking through these houses, the ones that have been dated like this house was built in 1996, nothing has been updated throughout the carpet’s worn out. There’s some stains, the kitchen fixtures like the dishwasher, the sink, you can tell they’re original, nothing’s been updated there. The counters are original, the cabinets are original, the lighting all has that gold trim and the handles on the doors all has gold trim.
The front door is worn down, nothing’s really been done in this house to update it. That’s why it’s still sitting on the market. It is priced below others, but you gotta work for it a little bit more right now. Sellers, you can’t have all these things that need to be updated like aging wallpaper from 1996 and expect buyers to just come in and snatch it like they would’ve been the summer.
So if you’re trying to buy a house right now and you’re finding some of these houses that have been on the market 10, 20, 30 days, maybe they were even back on the market in the summer and didn’t sell and they’re back on the market at a lower price, it’s because they probably has something about them where buyers are passing. And the last house we looked at, it was updates. It needed new carpet, it needed updates in in the kitchen and the bathroom throughout. It was already kind of at the top of a price range for that neighborhood. But then when you’re not pricing in the updates that need to happen, it’s gonna sit this one, kind of nice home inside. But you’ve got this lot in the backyard where the slope falls off really hard. So if you’re trying to buy a house right now, that can be good if you’re looking at these properties now that have been sitting for 10, 20, 30 days because sellers are feeling that pressure right now that hey, I’m not getting the activity, I’m not getting the offers and if an offer comes in we need to land that fish on the hook.
So you need to know that as a buyer that even though interest rates have gone up and you know your payment for the same amount of house has gone up monthly, what you’re not in in terms of the situation is back where we were in the spring-summer of this year where you might need to bid 10, 20, 30, 40 K over asked price instead. You might be able to get it 5, 10, 15, 20 K below list price. So factor that in into your overall thoughts of how much you’re gonna be paying for the house, both now in your interest payment but also in the purchase price of the home and what that could save you over time.
The owner is a little bit after my own heart used to play baseball, but I love how there are just ball marks all around the insulation down here where you’ve either thrown or hit a ball into the insulation. So good times. I don’t have a finished basement that I can use or an unfinished basement like this, but if I did I’d be playing like this. I like it.
So common question I get, we’ve got some buyers here from California is what about fences? Can I put in a garden? It’s not uncommon here when people get to Kentucky or Ohio and be like, where are the fences? Cause maybe where you live, there are tall privacy fences and you don’t really talk to your neighbors. Here in Kentucky, here in Cincinnati, we like our neighbors. In my neighborhood, we’ve gotta playground in our backyard. All the neighborhood kids come and play with it. If you want to have privacy, you can. There is a privacy fence. It’s that six-foot-tall privacy fence. You know, if you wanna block that out, make sure your pets stay in. Most people when they put in fences, they put in kind of that three-four foot fence to keep in their pets but still able to connect with your neighbors, which is one of the benefits of living here in my opinion.
And you know, let’s talk about that process real quick cuz we haven’t for a while. The client who came here trying to buy a house right now actually was a real estate agent herself in a previous life. And so she understands it. I know it could be a little weird to be like, I’m watching this guy on YouTube, but do I want to actually use him as an agent? Hey, that’s up to you. But give us a call. We’d love to talk to you about the process of buying a house right now. What it looks like is we’re gonna connect you, you kind of ask you some questions about what’s going on. We’re gonna make sure you can get pre-approved. We’re gonna walk you through the process and then when you get here, we always like to see if you can get here in person. That’s gonna be better. We can certainly do virtual showings with our showing assistance.
If you’re trying to buy a house right now, we can do video walkthroughs of the houses if that is what you need to do. But if you can get here in person, that’s always better. Then we’re gonna walk you through the entire process. I’m gonna help you with the negotiations, running comps. We have a full team that’s gonna help you out from, you know, being introduced to the team by me through these videos, to Carrie, who’s our kind of client care specialist, to Jill, who’s our transaction specialist to our different showing assistants who help us out. We’re gonna take care of you. You’re gonna get the best results from Team Sztanyo.
So whether you’re shopping in this current market or you’re looking to sell a house, that’s always valuable to have an agent who understands what is happening. They have boots on the ground, they see the shifts, they see the trends, they’re looking at the data, they know the numbers of the market right now buyers, it is slowing down.
And so when you’re looking to shop for a house in this area right now, you should be able to get something at list price or potentially even below if it’s been sitting for a little bit. Sellers, you need to factor that in. You should be working with an agent who understands where the market’s heading. You can look at the comps from the summer, but you need to understand that the buyer demand right now is way down. So you gotta be having those conversations, sellers with your agents to make sure you’re pricing it right and competitively so you can get those buyers right off the bat. You also need to think through staging a little bit more on the front end than maybe just throwing something up in the summer where houses were flying off the market.
Help In Buying a House Right Now with The Real Estate Shifting Market
Whether you’re into buying a house right now or selling in a market that’s going up in a market that’s going down or a shifting market, which is what we are in right now, you want to have a trusted professional on your side. That’s what we try to be for you here at Team Sztanyo. So whether you have questions, you’re just feeling out, maybe you need to talk to a lender, understand what’s going on with these rates, we can help you with that. Give us a call at Team Sztanyo (513) 813-6293. We would love to help you in buying a house right now and find the right home for you and help kind of sort out what is the best situation. Should you buy a house that’s been sitting on the market? Should you go after the one that’s in maybe better condition that’s gonna sell fast. We’ll help you through all that and how to navigate this shifting market. Thank you so much. We’ll see you next time.