Is now a smart time, or a REALLY dumb time to buy a home? Me and my wife moved to Korea in 2019... Mostly everywhere now we aren't allowed to go to because of the vaccine, we can go to small marts and old markets to get food and shop online, most everything else we can't. We believe in the next month or so they are going to start fining people who aren't vaccinated, we don't know how this will effect us as we are both American citizens... but if you don't pay the fine you go to jail... so over night Korea went totally authoritarian, with zero push back.
We are looking at moving back to the USA ASAP, there is a presidential election in Korea in March, so maybe that will change something, but I doubt it.
I know very little about home buying, I have what is considered a great credit score and I own my own small online business as a sole proprietor, it does seem to be doing well despite everything. I am not rich, I do have money saved for a down payment of some sort and my income is very medium income sub 60K on average.
Just with all the uncertainty and inflation, is it a really dumb idea to buy a house now? I'm looking at rent and it seems astronomical currently, I just wanted some opinions, should I just rent when I get back and see what happens over the next year or so?
If you don't have to be near a city to work, you're crazy not to look at rural areas. Taxes are lower and home prices are lower and it's just a better life. As far as now being a terrible time to buy vs rent, if all the properties are being bought up, are rents going to to even higher? I doubt if they'll go down.
Yeah I'm looking at foothills of NC or north western South Carolina, I need to be somewhat near Charlotte, NC as my entire family is there, I'd like to be within a few days drive.
Also been looking at Eastern TN
I can tell you Asheville is very liberal. They even passed a reparations law. Most anywhere in eastern US would be within a few hours of Charlotte. One of my relatives drives there fairly often from where she lives in southwest Va. and it's only about 3-4 hours away for her.