Buying a house during current strange economic times may not be as intimidating as you think

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (KBSI) – Bill Cole, owner of Edge Realty in Cape Girardeau, almost can’t believe the current state of the real estate market. 

“This is perhaps the weirdest market I’ve seen since we opened up in 2003,” he said. “It almost doesn’t make sense. It really doesn’t.” 

Mortage rates have doubled in the last year, going from around 3 percent to 6 and upwards of 7 percent. 

“I think it’s just sticker shock because there’s no doubt when you go from 3 percent to 6 percent in one year’s time, your buying power goes down,” Cole said. “It just simply does, and it goes down dramatically.” 

Cole said one of the advantages of buying a house right now is the ability to refinance later on. 

“If you find a house, and the numbers work for you, I would certainly suggest you go ahead and purchase because you can always refi if the rates drop lower,” he said. “Now, there’s a point at which it makes sense to refi and not, but usually if it shifts three-quarters to a percent, it makes sense.” 

And even in these strange economic times, both Cole and Jared Ritter of Ritter Real Estate allude to what seems like a “bubble” around Cape Girardeau and southeast Missouri. 

“The Cape Girardeau area certainly isn’t immune to a recession, but we are often described as a bubble where we don’t get hit as hard as some other areas do because we have such great employers around here, good stable companies,” Cole said.

“It’s like we have this southeast Missouri bubble at times, and even thinking back to COVID, some of the worst of the worst and the highest of the highs, our southeast Missouri bubble seems to prevail,” Ritter said.

And mortgage rates have been inching downward in recent weeks, so that is an encouraging sign.