Home Sales Are Up: Are You Ready to Buy?

Home sales are on the rise! In fact, they’ve made a BIG jump. From January to February 2023, home sales went up 14.5%. This was the first monthly gain in a year. In fact, it was the largest increase since July of 2020! 

What does this mean? If you’ve been waiting to buy…NOW is a great time to get off the fence.

With inventory still tight, a jump in home sales means bidding wars are on their way back. This is great for home sellers but will make getting your offer accepted a bit more complex as a buyer. With 980,000 existing homes available for sale right now (which is less than a three-month supply), waiting could very well mean you’re missing out on a buying opportunity.

To put this number into perspective—to create a truly neutral market for both buyers and sellers, we’d want to see a four to six-month supply of homes available for purchase.

Not to mention, home prices have actually gone down since summer 2022 due to rising mortgage rates. We haven’t seen this happen in 131 months. That’s almost 10 years!

If you’re looking to buy:

• Many home buyers are concerned about not having a 20% down payment. While that is ideal, it is not necessary to become a homeowner.
  
  
• Others are concerned about fluctuating interest rates. One way to combat constantly changing interest rates is to secure your rate. Churchill’s Rate Secured program allows you to cap your rate for up to 90 days while you shop for your new home. The best part is—if rates go down, you get the lower rate!

Don’t stress about competing with cash offers:

Did you know that 28% of homes bought in February 2023 were all-cash offers? That statistic probably feels overwhelming to many home buyers, but all that really means is the seller felt secure, knowing the buyer had a way to pay without fear of the purchase falling through.

To give you that same level of security, we offer Home Buyer Edge. As part of the Home Buyer Edge program, you’ll be able to:

• Become a Certified Home Buyer, which sets you up similarly to a cash offer.
  
  
• Secure your interest rate for a minimum of 90 days while you shop to a home.
  
  
• Provide a $5,000 Seller Guarantee in your contract, which goes above and beyond an all-cash offer! So, if your financing falls through, the seller will keep the escrow money AND be given an extra $5,000, which makes your offer stand out from the crowd.

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The truth is, there’s never been a more important time to be smart about buying a home. That starts with a smarter mortgage plan. And a smarter mortgage plan starts with your goals. The Churchill Mortgage team is here to provide you loan options that make sense for your financial starting point.

Don’t miss out on your opportunity to build equity through homeownership. Get started with one of our Home Loan Specialists today!

*The Churchill Certified Home Buyer program is not a commitment to lend funds and is not an approval but is a conditional approval subject to your acceptance of the terms and the conditions being fully satisfied prior to closing. All conditions are subject to final underwriting and final investor approval. The certification is subject to the financial status and credit report(s) of everyone on the application remaining substantially the same until closing, an acceptable contract of sale on a suitable property, collateral (the appraisal, title, survey, condition, and insurance) satisfies the requirements of the lender and loan selected is still available in the market. All closing conditions of the lender must be satisfied including the clear transfer of the title, acceptable and adequate title and hazard insurance, flood certification, and any inspections that are required by the real estate contract.

*Rate Secured is available on 30-year conventional conforming and high-balance fixed-rate loans. Rate Secured is not available on investment property home loans.