30-year mortgage rates are near 8% with excellent credit. Interest rates have climbed for the past three months straight. The Fed is considering another interest rate increase for November and December, possibly pushing rates up to 8.5% or even 9%. The reasoning is that higher interest rates will "slow down inflation".
Home sales are at a 13-year low. Factor in the higher cost of insurance and the fact that property taxes are going up to unaffordable levels and the very high cost of labor and materials for home construction... and you have a real estate market that's going to crater.
I personally know several homeowners that had their homes listed for sale, but have removed them from the market in the past 2 months. They will wait and hold on to what they have for now. One real estate agent mentioned to a couple that they should keep their house off the market until at least middle of next year and then decide based on market conditions.
I'm suggesting that the U.S. economy is a three legged stool... and one of those legs is housing and private & commercial real estate. If it fails, the economy goes into a deep recession at best.
Atlanta has been a high-cost market for decades. While there are plenty of $150,000 homes there, they are not in neighborhoods you desire. That is a historic problem in Real Estate and why the saying goes that the three most important factors in Real Estate are Location, Location, Location. In larger cities to get lower priced homes you either have to go to inner-city or very distant rural.
I now live about 5 miles from the ocean on a golf course in a resort town. This is a small town as far as residents but gets insane numbers of tourist. I speak with a lot of younger people who complain they can't find anything in their price range. When they get honest about the problem, they admit they want to live in a home like their parents' house but forget their parents went through three houses to get to that point. Again, this is a small town so when I suggest they look 20 miles out they complain they should be able to get to work and the beach in a few minutes like when they lived with parents.
A major Metropolitan area like Atlanta would be expected to have starter homes in the $200,000 plus range. My first home was a 3 bedroom, 1 bath, 1100 sq ft with no basement or garage on a busy street. That starter home is where I built equity until I was making more money and was able to move into a larger home. I'm on my fourth home now and never owned more than one at a time.
My parents have been in same 4 bed 2.5 bath all my life with a partial basement and I’ve even looked into Alabama in small towns with nothing really below 250-300 and if you find it it’s gonna need lots of work which is more money. Cartersville outside of Atlanta by an hour or more is 350000 for town houses. I bought a double wide and all set up and foundation was 150. I couldn’t have built the two bed two bath I wanted at the time for that