Hello! Back again to share more advice if you are considering buying your first home in this crazy market.  My specialty is helping homebuyers purchase their first bungalows in the Ybor area, Seminole Heights, and the surrounding Urban Core.

In this blog, #2 of a 4-part series, I am going to continue to provide you with some very important things you’ll want to consider before getting started with the buying process.

Are You Ready to Buy?

After getting pre-approved for a mortgage is out of the way, you need to consider if you are really ready to buy.  Are you prepared to be fully responsible for caring for a yard, for making any repairs that might come up, for possibly cleaning more square footage than you do in your apartment?  How about taking out the garbage?  Do you currently leave it outside your door for management to pick up? 

Purchasing a home is certainly a lifestyle change.  With choosing to buy, be forewarned that you will also be thinking differently than the majority of your peers.  I saw a recent statistic that showed that 83% of millennials are holding off purchasing a home right now!  Be strong in your convictions and understand that everyone is on their own path, and learn to block out the negative chatter you will most likely hear during the purchasing process.

Be Patient!

If you are still on board with buying your first home, you need to be patient.  In a healthy real estate market where buyers and sellers are on equal footing, there would be 6 months’ worth of inventory available.  For the last several years, inventory has been unusually low, making it a very strong seller’s market, and we have been hovering around only one month’s worth of inventory for about the last year, which is insane! 

With the pandemic and the resulting work-from-home model, people are flocking to Tampa at a clip of about 134 people per day.  Add this competition to an already tight market, where we are seeing national inventory levels down almost 50% from just a couple of years ago, and you can see why the market is so fierce right now.  I am confident that you will find a home that meets your needs, it just might not be in the timeframe that you would like.  

Have a Back-up Plan

Which leads to my next suggestion - have a back up plan for your living arrangements.  Due to the tight market, sellers are sometimes receiving 10 or more offers on their properties, and if a property interests you, you can bet that it is also on the radar of others!  There’s especially intense competition for homes in the lower price ranges that would be ideal for investors to use as rental properties. 

If you are currently in a lease, start checking now into options for continuing your lease on a monthly basis.  The monthly rent may be higher for the short-term convenience, but it will hopefully be less than signing a year-long lease and then having to pay a hefty fee to break it.  If this is not an option, can you put your belongings in storage and maybe crash at a friend’s home, or perish the thought, stay at your parents’ home?  I understand how this part of the process might be the most trying, but considering all options may be necessary.

Come back next week when I share more advice on purchasing a home in the current market, or go back and read the previous blog where I provide the first steps EVERY buyer should take in ANY market.

And if you have any questions about Ybor, Seminole Heights, Tampa Heights, or Tampa’s Urban Core, or about real estate in general, do not hesitate to contact me. Until next week!