The Montrose Real Estate market is following suit with the traditional fall-season slowdown. Kids are back in school and the cooler temps are ushering in the closure of the typical home-purchasing season. Homes are selling, albeit taking longer to sell than what the market has been accustomed to. The housing Inventory is averaging 3.6 months of supply for the month of September, clarifying the fact that we’re still in a market that favors sellers.
With that said, no one in this current market feels like they have an advantage, especially buyers facing daunting affordability constraints. Mortgage payments are around $3,000 a month for an average-priced home in Montrose. And if you were to run that payment against the typical household income in Montrose, you’d see that the monthly costs for housing are a whopping 60% of total household expenditures. Fannie Mae suggests a maximum of 30%, meanwhile, Dave Ramsey takes a conservative approach at 25%. One could argue that renting is then the only option, but rents are also sitting at a premium, again due to the lack of housing supply. We’re still seeing buyers with a desire to purchase a home, but then reluctance once the numbers present reality. Some buyers are putting homes under contract, but then backing out of the purchase agreement after reassessing their monthly payment.
Mortgage rates have shot up almost a full percentage point since August and are now close to 8% for a 30-year fixed loan. Based on comments from the Feds recent meeting, it looks like we’re headed into a lending environment with elevated rates for a much longer period of time. Therefore, hopes that one could purchase a home now, and then refinance at a lower rate in 6 months, seems much more unlikely and quite frankly dangerous. The juxtaposition though, is that waiting to purchase a home (which many Americans are now doing) will likely cost more in the future as housing supply is still constrained with no end in sight. Which therefore solidifies current home prices and future price growth.
The three-month median home price in Montrose has increased by 7.56% over the last year. The list-to-sold price is now close to 100% as well, further illustrating the strength of home values in the Uncompahgre Valley.
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Statistics gathered from CREN MLS, criteria are all residential not including mobile or manufactured housing in Montrose. If you have a brokerage relationship with another agency, this is not intended as a solicitation. Equal opportunity housing provider. Each office is independently owned and operated. For sale by owner data not included in research findings. Sales data reflects sales from homes not limited to the Atha Team LLC. This information was gathered from Keller Williams, The National Association of Realtors, CoreLogic data analysis firm, Montrose Association of Realtors, CMU Department of Business and Economics, InfoSparks, YCharts, National Association of Realtors, Cornerstone Home Lending, and the Mortgage Brokers Association. This data is considered accurate but is not guaranteed. Copyright Atha Team LLC 2023. All Rights Reserved.