Is This The Wrong Time to Buy a House? 5 Resources to Help You Decide
My wife and I are now empty nesters and no longer homeowners. We recently moved to a high-rise apartment in Midtown (Atlanta). It's the first time we have rented in our marriage. Before this, we were landlords ourselves and lived in the suburbs.
Only you and your spouse can decide when the right or wrong time is to buy a home. Don’t let a realtor convince you that now is the right time to buy a home. A realtor only makes money when people buy and sell homes.
I can hear the argument now. “Home prices and rates might be high, but rent is skyrocketing too. You might as well get a return on your investment by buying now.”
For what it’s worth, considering a home as an investment is debatable. I argue that a home is not an investment in the previous post, Choosing where to live with your spouse.
Lenders and Home Buying Advice
Don’t let lenders persuade you to borrow to buy a home now. Lenders only make money when you borrow. I can hear them now: “I know the mortgage rates have doubled over the past year, but they’ll come back down, and you can refinance when they do.” And yes, they make money again when you refinance.
Avoid allowing a singular emotional decision to create a problem that compounds each month when you make a mortgage payment, which is easier said than done when you are married.
How you divide money-management responsibilities in your home can influence the conversation. Whoever knows what is affordable should run the numbers with their spouse to make an informed decision together.
The best way to decide together is to schedule a Money Date, or, as others call it, a budget committee meeting.
Here are five Interactives you and your spouse can use to make an informed decision.
1. Average cost of rent
Sure, rent has skyrocketed across the country, but what about where you live now or want to live? The range in cost is significant enough to dive in and look at the averages by area. This calculator also lets you determine whether an apartment's asking price is within the market average for that area.
2. Home price and home price growth by location
How much house you can buy depends on several factors, such as the location and timing. Using the Joint Studies for Housing Studies of Harvard University, you can see the home price growth over time by location. You can also see relatively current housing prices by location using Realtor.com.
3. Mortgage Calculator
I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but this is not pretty. The average fixed rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage in the second week of January 2025 was 7.08%, whereas the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage during the 3rd week of October in 2021 was 3.1%.
Monthly payment tunnel vision is the enemy of rational thought. It’s easy to justify paying a bit more when you see how little the monthly cost difference is; those dollars add up. Lenders and real estate agents often anchor a home's cost in monthly payments to make it feel more affordable. Just because you can afford the monthly payment doesn’t mean you should buy it.
That said, I know most of us rely on a monthly budget to guide our decisions, so I will share how mortgage rates affect monthly payments. Here is the monthly payment cost difference between the two interest rates, using the median price of houses listed on the market over the past couple of years. Click on either image to use the mortgage calculator yourself.
October 2021: 3.1% Interest Rate
7.02% Interest Rate (Example rate from 2025, 2026)
Related reading: Where Should We Live? – 15 Factors with Resources to Help Newlyweds Decide Where to Live
4. Rent vs. Buy Calculator
There are several reasons renting can make more sense than buying, which we covered earlier, including a Rent or Buy Checklist and a Pros and Cons of renting and owning a home graphic. Should I Buy or Rent a House? The right decision depends on your circumstances. As it pertains to doing the math, the NY Times Rent vs. Buy calculator is an excellent tool for you to use.
Your financial life in a spreadsheet, automatically updated daily. Build your budget, now.
5. Amortization calculator
The amortization paperwork you review when signing a mortgage helps you understand the loan's full cost. It is a line-by-line accounting for the principal and interest due each month for the life of the loan. Before building the monthly mortgage payment into your budget, review the loan's amortization schedule to understand the cost over time.
The lifetime cost of a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 3.1%
The lifetime cost of a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 7.02%
As you can see from the images above, you will pay $300,003 more for borrowing the same amount of money today, at 7.02%, than you would have borrowed in October of 2021.
Final Thoughts
How happy will a new home make you and your spouse? Keep in mind that you're more likely to regret buying a home than missing out on an experience.
Play the Devil’s Advocate with your spouse before moving forward with a decision. Here are a few example prompts to consider for back-and-forth discussion:
Why buy a home now | Why continue to rent |
The lender says rates will go back down and we can refinance. | How does the lender know this? Rates are still lower on average than they have been over the past 50 years, so housing prices should come down. |
If rates continue to rise and we don’t buy now, we won’t be able to buy later. | That is not necessarily true; home prices have peaks and valleys. |
We might not be able to afford to rent in the future. Rent has outpaced inflation for a long time | We can afford to rent now, and it’s easier to get out of a lease than to try to sell a home during a recession. |
One final step before moving forward with buying a home.
Review the CFPB Your home loan toolkit: A step-by-step guide. It is full of trustworthy and unbiased information you can use to make a more informed decision.
Professional Support
I'm the only Certified Financial Therapist™, Accredited Financial Counselor®, and Fair Play Facilitator®, empowering high-achieving couples with systems to manage money and the home as a team—drawing on decades of national leadership and lived experience.
Click here to learn more about how and when I can support you.
Modern Husbands Podcast
Winning ideas from experts to manage money and the home as a team. 2023 Plutus Award Finalist: Best Couples or Family Content
🔔 Click here to listen and subscribe to the Modern Husbands Podcast on Apple.
🔔 Click here to listen and subscribe to the Modern Husbands Podcast on Spotify.
Modern Husbands Newsletter
Click here to subscribe for winning ideas to manage money and the home as a team.
Citations
Rosenzweig, Emily, and Thomas Gilovich. “Buyer's remorse or missed opportunity? Differential regrets for material and experiential purchases.” Journal of personality and social psychology vol. 102,2 (2012): 215-23. doi:10.1037/a0024999
Original Post: 1/10/25
Updated Post: 9/9/26
