“Great time to buy!” is a mantra I’m certain we’ve all heard, especially recently. Most people think that means it must be a bad time to sell, but that simply isn’t true. What will you do if you sell your house; buy another one!
Say you paid $300,000 two years ago. You sell your house for $200,000. In the next town over (which is closer to your job, think how much gas money you’ll save) you buy a house for $200,000 that was for sale for $350,000 at the same time you bought your house two years ago.
Since prices are lower right now you can purchase a new house at a low price too. It’s hard to break down a home into a numerical value, the easiest and most natural way to think of it is what you paid for it. If you buy a gallon of milk for $4.00 and the next day someone ask how much you would sell it to them, the answer is pretty obvious! Ask a stock broker though and you’ll get a much more complicated answer about milk futures and the current value of the dollar. From a buyers perspective the value of your home is dictated by the comparison to other homes that are for sale and not what you paid for it.
