Some breakthrough good news has come to light. It deals
with first-time home buyers.
Across the U.S., first-time
home buyers have been staging a disappearing act for a worrisome long
time. The causes were pretty universal across much of the country: a sluggish
economic recovery and tight labor market contributed to the national
phenomenon. Rises in San Antonio residential prices haven’t helped those
seeking to become new homeowners locally.
For San Antonio homeowners who follow such things, the phenomenon was slowly becoming a worrisome
fact—one that didn’t look like it was going away anytime soon. When you own a
home, its value as collateral and at sale depends on a healthy real estate
market—one that supports sustainable activity.
That means that new buyers should appear in numbers at
least equal to those who seek to sell and move on. If fewer and fewer new
buyers appear…well, that can’t be good over the long haul. The
fact that the percentage of first-time home buyers had been dwindling for three
straight years was the statistical equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard.
The new edition of the National Association of Realtors’ 2016 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers is the annual compilation
of activity across the nation. The Profile
has been a yearly fixture since 1981, making it the longest-running
continuous series of measurements of who is buying and selling residences in
the United States. If you are taking a reading of the market, it’s one of the
most valuable gauges out there. But even before the recent reports of returning
economic optimism, it’s now clear that a reversal had been underway for a
while. This latest Profile marks a
turnaround in first-timer activity: they’re back.
San Antonio real estate watchers were already well aware of
the continuing gradual rise in U.S. home prices, but the new information shows
a bounce back toward a more normal market makeup. A second move in that direction also surfaced: the proportion of
single female buyers, which also had been on the decline, showed a return toward normal. According to this year’s
report, their numbers increased to about 17% of total purchases (not including
investment and vacation home purchases). That is slightly more than twice the
number of single male buyers—which is close to what is normally expected.
For first-time home buyers as well as others in all categories,
the majority given for choosing homeownership was a traditional one: the appeal
of owning a place of their own. Also frequently cited was “renter fatigue”—a
phenomenon that surfaces whenever homeowners are
seeing their equity on the rise.
This all comes as cheering news as we head toward the new
year. If 2017 looks to be a year when your own San Antonio real estate plans
come into focus, I hope you’ll consider giving me a call to discuss how I can
help turn those plans into reality!
Emily Terrell
Terrell Macy Group
eXp Realty, LLC
REALTOR®
Cell Phone: (214) 931-9758
Office: (210) 960-4677
E-mail: Emily.Terrell@exprealty.com
Address: 9600 Great Hills Trl, STE 150W
Austin, TX 78759
Realtor Licensed in the State of Texas, #0659142
Texas Law requires all real estate licensees to give the following information about brokerage services: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0vx74mjnt1fpanm/Information_About_Brokerage_Services_BuyerTenant__11215_ts82551.pdf?dl=0
Texas Law requires all real estate licensees to give the following information about brokerage services: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0vx74mjnt1fpanm/Information_About_Brokerage_Services_BuyerTenant__11215_ts82551.pdf?dl=0
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