SAN ANGELO, Texas (KLST / KSAN) – Recent reports suggesting the nation may see the real estate market begin to slow down going from a “sellers” to a “buyers” market. However, in San Angelo, real estate professionals expect prices to remain high even as inflation drives rates.
There will be some time before we are able to notice any slowing in the real estate market as buying continues in the city, but it may get worse before it gets better.

Aaron Nelson, Texas Realtors Political Actions Committee Trustee, says, “the market is crazy, and has been, but, you know with inflation, everybody’s talking about that right now. So, there’s a good chance that rates are about to go up a bit. And we’ve got some headroom before it really starts making a difference in slowing down the market but if they creep up too much if they get closer to maybe 4%, then we’re going to see a little bit.”

They’re expecting home prices not to drop for the next few years which also impacts mortgages for home buyers. The current “seller’s market” trends are also impacting mortgages for home buyers.

One loan officer at guild mortgage, Karah Bowles, says, “the biggest impact you’re gonna have is with prices going up, I mean obviously, your payments gonna be higher than it was five years ago, I would say five years ago you could probably buy a starter home for closer to like a 90,000.
Now I would say the minimum budget needs to be probably at least 120,000 so I mean, obviously, that makes a big difference in monthly payment down payment, how much you can afford things like that.”

Her advice is to prepare ahead of time. Bowles continues, “I would say the biggest thing is just getting prequalified ahead of time and knowing your budget. I’ve even talked to people six months out, knowing that they’re going to be buying in the future and trying to help them plan for what credit needs to look like, how much money they need to have saved up, what kind of payment to expect. That’s one of the first conversations I have with people is, you know what houses are you looking at how much did they cost and what payment you want.”