Buying a Home in Houston Now: 6 Factors

The other day, it was interesting to read a featured commentary on the MoneyCrashers.com website. It promised to pinpoint the “6 Factors” to consider when deciding whether you “should buy a home now— or wait?” No dateline was visible, but you’d have to deduce that it had first been published a while ago. The absence of any mention of today’s changed circumstances and the uncertainties ahead made it pretty clear that it had been written in pre-pandemic days (remember those)? Even so, the “6 Factors” do hold their validity. They may not cover all the key considerations—but they do set the stage for that very weighty decision.
The first factors dealt with financial viability. Realistically, those first three are basic qualifiers for buying any home in Houston. Counted as #1 was a buyer’s current state of finances—having the financial wherewithal, including a provision for emergencies, to fund the process. The second was the stability of future income (a factor that’s suddenly become less predictable). We can hope this soon becomes more foreseeable. The third factor dealt with having an adequate credit score. Those first three are all factors without which buying a home would be imprudent, if even possible.
The remaining three factors were more subjective but also more original and thought-provoking. A commitment to staying in one place may be personality-driven, but has ramifications that are also financial. A buyer who might not stay rooted in Houston for at least three years would usually be better advised to settle for renting—thus avoiding the expenses of buying and selling in a compressed timeframe. Next, commitment to homeownership is a sometimes overlooked quality-of-life consideration. Without the willingness to take on home repair and maintenance challenges, the pride that homeowners take in mastering those skills can instead become a collection of drudgery-laden burdens.
The final factor was the “state of the current real estate and credit market.” Half of that one is clear: the state of the ‘credit market’ part couldn’t be more auspicious. The other part—the state of today’s Houston real estate market—is easily determined. Just give Rinnovare Realty, LLC a call!