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?
I'm a real estate agent and this is an incredibly tricky question. I think location is the most important factor, I live in an area of the south that is a huge boomtown and even a full on economic crisis will barely touch our housing market because there are more people than houses. in 2008 we lost about 10% while much of the nation lost 25-40% in value.
Owning is typically better than buying but do your research and if you are handy consider finding a fixer upper at a reasonable price? Rent rates seem absolutely absurd at the moment however sometimes it is nice not having to worry about home repairs. I own multiple properties at the moment and I don't sell because typically land/property also holds value well during times of economic chaos, anyone who rode out the 08 crash would still be sitting on near 100% gains in home prices since the crash.