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Here are four great reasons to consider buying a home today instead of waiting.
1. Prices Will Continue to RiseCoreLogic’s latest Home Price Index reports that home prices have appreciated by 6.9% over the last 12 months. The same report predicts that prices will continue to increase at a rate of 4.8% over the next year.
The bottom in home prices has come and gone. Home values will continue to appreciate for years. Waiting no longer makes sense.
2. Mortgage Interest Rates Are Projected to IncreaseFreddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey shows that interest rates for a 30-year mortgage have remained around 4% over the last couple months. The Mortgage Bankers Association, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac & the National Association of Realtorsare in unison, projecting that rates will increase by at least a half a percentage point this time next year.
An increase in rates will impact YOUR monthly mortgage payment. A year from now, your housing expense will increase if a mortgage is necessary to buy your next home.
3. Either Way, You are Paying a Mortgage There are some renters who have not yet purchased a home because they are uncomfortable taking on the obligation of a mortgage. Everyone should realize that, unless you are living with your parents rent-free, you are paying a mortgage – either yours or your landlord’s.
As an owner, your mortgage payment is a form of ‘forced savings’ that allows you to build equity in your home that you can tap into later in life. As a renter, you guarantee your landlord is the person with that equity.
Are you ready to put your housing cost to work for you?
4. It’s Time to Move on with Your LifeThe ‘cost’ of a home is determined by two major components: the price of the home and the current mortgage rate. It appears that both are on the rise.
But what if they weren’t? Would you wait?
Look at the actual reason you are buying and decide if it is worth waiting. Whether you want to have a great place for your children to grow up, you want your family to be safer or you just want to have control over renovations, maybe now is the time to buy.
If the right thing for you and your family is to purchase a home this year, buying sooner rather than later could lead to substantial savings.

Nothing has more immediate impact on the mood of a garden than color. When it comes to putting together a garden color palette, you can first decide how you want a space to make you feel and then choose the color scheme accordingly. If you want a cheerful and inviting space, choose foliage and blooms in light and medium pastel shades. If you’d like to feel energized, go for a high-contrast pairing of fiery red flowers and deep purple foliage. For a feeling of tranquility, turn to blooms in peaceful blues and whites.
Don’t know where to begin? Take a look at garden beds in three pleasing color palettes that each set a specific mood for the landscape.
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Why bother with a color palette? Gardens with too much variety can feel overwhelming and look cluttered. Sticking to a color scheme for a planting gives a garden a balanced, put-together look and can help you avoid impulse purchases at the nursery. It’s up to personal taste, but limiting the number of different colors to no more than five can be a helpful rule of thumb. While this may seem constraining, adopting a more disciplined approach to plantings can harmonize the look and feel of your garden without sacrificing plant diversity.
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1. Cheerful and Inviting
Color palette: Medium blue-green, light green, bright orchid, eggshell, deep violetEvoke the look of Monet’s garden in Giverny with a watercolor palette of pink, blue, purple, green and soft yellow. Pastels feel fresh and harmonious in the garden, transitioning smoothly from one soft hue to the next. Like the first blooms in spring, pastel color palettes feel cheerful and inviting — making them a great choice for entryway and front yard plantings.

Pastel color palettes can include all hues on the color wheel in muted tones. Adding one or two plants in a more saturated color — like a dark green-leaved shrub or deep purple perennial — can keep a pastel color palette from looking washed out.

In this woodland garden outside of Boston, the designer banked the beds with pastel blooms mixed with plants that have silver to medium green foliage. Here we see white peonies, dark purple ‘May Night’ sage (Salvia ‘May Night’), lavender-pink ‘Globemaster’ alliums (Allium ‘Globemaster’), silver-leaved Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia), lamb’s ears (Stachys byzantina) and evergreen inkberry (Ilex glabra). Concentrating on blues and purples in a pastel palette creates a calmer and more tranquil feel than pastel schemes that include yellows and pinks. In the same garden, catmint (Nepeta sp.) blends with dark purple ‘May Night’ sage, lavender-pink ‘Globemaster’ allium and lady’s mantle (Alchemilla mollis) for a calming walkway planting. 

Gardens using jewel-toned color palettes benefit from tones chosen from opposite sides of the color wheel (like orange and blue or yellow and violet). Pairing plants with foliage or flower colors in closely complementary hues makes each color stand out in contrast to its neighbors. For example, in this seaside garden on Bainbridge Island, Washington, dark purple ‘Caradonna’ sage (Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’) and cool blue ‘Little Titch’ catmint (Nepeta racemosa ‘Little Titch’) set off bright orange California poppies (Eschscholzia californica) planted close by. 

In this backyard in Westport, Connecticut, the designer used a mix of white- and blue-flowering bigleaf hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla), medium blue veronica, pale purple-blue catmint (Nepeta sp.) and white roses.

Traditionally, spring is the busiest season for real estate. Buyers come out in force and homeowners list their houses for sale hoping to capitalize on buyer activity. This year will be no different!
Buyers have already been out in force looking for their dream homes and more are on their way, but the challenge is that the inventory of homes for sale has not kept up with demand, which has lead to A LOT of competition for the homes that are available.
A recent Bloomberg article touched on the current market conditions:
“It’s the 2017 U.S. spring home-selling season, and listings are scarcer than they’ve ever been. Bidding wars common in perennially hot markets like the San Francisco Bay area, Denver and Boston are now also prevalent in the once slow-and-steady heartland, sending prices higher and sparking desperation among buyers across the country.”
Sam Khater, Deputy Chief Economist at CoreLogic went on to explain why buyers are flocking to the market in big numbers:
“In today’s market, many buyers think the trough in [interest] rates is over. If you don’t get in now, it’s just going to be worse later. Rates will be higher, prices will be higher, and maybe inventory selection will be lower.”
In some markets, “thirty-five percent of properties are selling within the first week or two of hitting the market.” ​
Bottom LineIn today’s competitive atmosphere, you need a professional on your side who knows your exact market conditions and can help you take the steps you need to be able to secure your new home!