What advice would I give to a Buyer that is interested in getting into the real estate market?

I was recently asked “What advice would I give to a Buyer that is interested in getting into the real estate market?”

The first thing I would tell them is to not worry so much about the interest rates.

That's a hard pill for people to swallow because last year, interest rates were around 2 – 3 percent and now they're around 6 – 7 percent.

Again, that's certainly a hard pill to swallow, but when you're buying a house,you buy the house, but you only date the rate.

What that means is that you own the house and you're going to have that through all of this…

But a year or two later, you can refinance the loan, whenever the rates come down. So, if the rates suck now, in a year when they hopefully don't suck, you could have all the equity from the time you’ve owned the house and then refinance the loan to reduce the rate. Suddenly you’ve brought the payment down to where you wanted it…

…and you still have all the equity from having made the monthly mortgage payments as well as the increased value of the property. So, you’re that much farther ahead of where you would be if you waited to buy until the rates came down.

Mortgage payments help make you wealthy.

Rent payments make your landlord wealthy.

It’s as simple as that.