Consumer home-buying power remains high

Missouri residents may not have forgotten the sting of the Great Recession which makes it understandable that they keep a close eye on the current and future economic outlook, especially when it comes to buying and selling homes. Mortgage News Daily recently announced that the government hiked the interest rate to its highest level in a month. Some people might be concerned that this could negatively impact their ability to sell or buy a home.

Certainly, home buyers always want to secure the lowest possible interest rate for their mortgages as that can save them a great amount of money over the course of many months and years. However, this emphasis on a low interest rate is not the only thing to evaluate when tracking the strength of the housing market.

As explained by Business Insider, there is a more accurate way of measuring the health of a consumer’s home-buying power that involves not just mortgage interest rates but also the consumer’s income. It is this latter statistic that keeps the current outlook for home-buying power strong as wages across the United States remain high and the labor market is also strong.

So, people in Missouri who are looking to buy homes may not necessarily need to feel discouraged by a rate increase of a half of a point or so. Even so, it is always wise to carefully review the terms of every home sale from the mortgage loan terms to other parameters covered in the real estate transaction documents.