When you’re knee-deep in the process of buying a home, you likely eat, sleep, and breathe every fluctuation in the housing market. But, once you’ve found your dream home and have settled into your much-coveted location, it’s all too easy to take your eye off the ball and slip into a false sense of security that not even a billionaire could afford in this volatile area. While you certainly don’t need to sweat out the housing prices in quite the same way, it’s always worth keeping at least one eye on the general market, regardless of whether you intend to move or not. Here are some reasons why it’s worth watching home prices even if you already have your dream home, and how it could end up helping your finances, and certainly your investment, overall.
The best way to manage your mortgage payments
Admittedly, once you’re signed and sealed into a mortgage, you’re unable to get out of that agreement unless you sell or transfer that asset. Despite this, knowing how the market stands at any given time is the best possible way to foresee any mortgage payment increases, and consider whether you can manage them, or whether it would be best to relocate. This forethought is essential for ensuring that you’re able to avoid defaults that can see interest, and the length of your mortgage agreement, rocketing in no time.
Making sure your asset is lucrative
If an area experiences high levels of crime or goes out of favor, negative equity isn’t unusual. This might not be a problem for you if you never intend to move, but if you get stuck in negative figures, your loved ones could have a real issue on their hands down the line, potentially leaving them not only without an inheritance to speak of but also facing escalating costs that require them to take out probate estate loans to afford legal expenses alone. With this in mind, and to ensure that you can move if you do decide you want to, it’s important to track local prices and make sure that your mortgage is always worth what you’re paying for it.
Tracking your value increases
Whether we intend to stay put or not, our properties are investments that we would like to see significant returns on at some stage, even if we don’t benefit from those personally. This is why we invest in so-called value-increasing efforts such as renovations, attic conversions, and even extensions. Unfortunately, despite estimated price increases littered across the internet, we have no real way of knowing in the moment whether these alterations truly do bring investment benefits that see them paying for themselves. By tracking local prices on properties that have implemented similar changes, you’re therefore far better able to understand how you’ve already increased the value of your property, and whether it’s worth spending the money to take further steps like these.
You might not need to lose sleep over property prices once you’re in your dream home, but it’s certainly worth keeping at least one eye on them to ensure these protections and more.
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