Transcript:

Hi, I’m Matt Weaver. I am a realtor in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

So currently, we are faced with an extreme shortage of homes in the market. That stems back to 2008 when we had the housing crisis. At that point in time, new construction kind of ceased to exist, and there were not a lot of homes being built at that point in time. Fast forward 15 years, we are faced with one of the largest groups of home buyers entering the market, which is the Millennials. So anyone aged 23 to 41 is now seriously looking at home buying. Traditionally, that age group would have been more in tune with renting versus owning, but now we have them in the marketplace looking to buy and sell. But because of the shortage of new construction 15 years ago, now we are short on homes.

In March of 2020, we were faced with COVID. COVID has changed the workforce significantly. Due to that, employers are more willing to allow employees to work from home. As a result, we are seeing significant migrations of people moving between large cities to more rural areas. So here in Lancaster County, we are faced with a lot of people coming from New York, Philly, and DC, to live rurally but still work at their big city jobs, also causing a shortage of available homes.

So currently, you will find that interest rates are starting to increase relatively significantly. However, that total impact on the market is not that significant. Yes, it will affect your ability to purchase and your purchasing power. However, don’t do a knee-jerk reaction, and just quickly purchase a home to purchase a home. Work with a buyer’s agent who is going to take the time to educate you on how interest rates will affect you in the long term.

So if you’re interested in interest rates and are concerned about how interest rates will affect your purchasing power on your next home, stay tuned for my next video, where I will be interviewing a local mortgage broker who will dive deeper into the effects of interest rates and your purchasing power.