Should You Buy a House During the COVID-19 Pandemic?
We live in a time where almost every plan is being put on hold. Weddings, graduations, vacations, scheduled surgeries, and even basic human interaction are all at a standstill (and for good reason) due to coronavirus. But does the same logic apply for buying a house?
At RealtyHive, we have many tools at our disposal and we intend to use them to help our clients and partners through this. Often, some of the biggest opportunities are masked as challenges. We believe that if pursued in a safe and smart way, the same can be said for buying a property.
Why You Should Still Look Into Buying a House
The idea of a regular part of life (like buying a house) might seem strange, if not selfish during this time. After all, millions of people in this country are experiencing job insecurity — is buying a house show a lack of tact or compassion?
Absolutely not. In fact, buying a house can help others, as long as you still keep safety guidelines in mind. While feeling guilty might feel natural, you still have every reason to be proud and excited about the prospect of buying a house. Here are some reasons why home buying is still a good idea:
Buying through a time-limited event is social distance-friendly.
Our bidding process is almost exclusively online. With a time-limited event, you can wait until the day of the event, submit a bid online along with a letter of intent. If your bid is accepted, you buy the property as-is. No crowded open houses or shaking of hands necessary.
Mortgage rates are at historic lows.
The 30-year and 15-year fixed-rate mortgages dropped 15 and 14 points (down to 3.50% and 2.92%), respectively. If your job is safe (or if you don’t rely on a job for income), you might not find a better time to buy. Purchasing a house right now could save you thousands of dollars in the long run.
You might be significantly helping someone out.
Our listings come from highly motivated sellers. A seller might be desperate to get out of the city, or maybe they experienced the painful, awful nature of losing their job during this time. Regardless, they’re wanting (or needing) to sell. No matter their motivations, sellers will likely be thankful that someone is buying their property.
It’s like Corona (the beer) during this time. There’s nothing wrong with Corona beer, and yet they lost millions due to a highly unfortunate and bizarre name similarity. Their company undoubtedly wishes that people would buy their beer, business as usual. The same is true for house sellers. They might have a perfect home up for sale that would normally sell quickly, and the only reason it’s not being bought is because people are afraid to act during these unusual circumstances.
We all still need places to live.
Buying food is a necessity. Getting enough sleep is essential. Having shelter is a basic need. Especially if you’re on track to buy a house as it stands (and have no foreseeable job changes), why put things off? Buy your house now and have even more space to shelter in place.
RealtyHive has the resources you need to safely buy a house and reach your goals. As scary as these times might be, moments of joy still exist and should not be overlooked. Babies are still being born. Couples are still getting engaged. High school seniors are getting college letters of acceptance. Some people are still even getting new jobs. As long as it’s done safely with a social distance (and financially sound) mindset, you not only can still buy a house, you should.