Yes. Very good for first-time home buyers.
Drive a hard bargain and get into the best house you can afford as soon as you can.
Here on Long Island the downturn in housing is being treated like the worst disaster since the great flood. I take a different view.
What future does a community or a region have if young families cannot afford to live there? Now young families can into their first home at a much more affordable price. Taxes and insurance are still horrendously high, but getting in at 10-20% below last year’s number means the difference between staying here or moving to another, more affordable region of the country.
Same here in Central Jersey. We have one of the most expensive real estate markets on earth, the local libs have been whining about the lack of “affordable housing” yet even as prices have barely plateaued (few drops so far, and those that have occurred are only 3% at most), the same folks are running around saying “we’re doomed.”
I agree! I bought in an OK area in CA 10 yrs ago for $285K, the house value went up to $700K but since then has dropped to maybe $600K—but I don’t care, because the great news is that now, 4 children later, we can afford to buy a larger house in an area with better schools, an area where housing prices have finally started dropping too. . .