Should You Wait to Buy a Home in Florida?

By: Josh Jampedro, Home Loan Advisors

Video Transcript: Waiting to buy a home in Florida

00:00:05:01 - 00:00:21:21

The waiting game. When you're waiting to buy a home, people don't know why I don't. I don't think they have any reason for it or any logic behind it. Like, sometimes that's a great idea. Like if it fits your lifestyle. Wait. I when I moved to Tampa, I didn't buy a home right away. I was waiting to buy, but I had a reason for it.

00:00:21:21 - 00:00:41:26

I didn't know where I wanted to live yet, so that's a pretty good reason. But I think a lot of people say they're waiting to buy because they're waiting for like some crash. So everybody's waiting for the housing market to crash, and home values are going to be so much cheaper because they're expensive currently. And then the information that they're getting comes from people like myself.

00:00:41:26 - 00:01:04:01

Who benefits from you not waiting to buy in real estate agents who obviously benefit from you not waiting to buy, even though we're actually the experts. So what happens sometimes is like, sure, mortgage lender and real estate agent, you want me to buy a house because then you benefit. So it's always a good time to buy. And so that clouds sometimes the fact that the information is still true, and the fact that it is a good time to buy.

00:01:04:01 - 00:01:24:02

And then why is it a good time to buy? Here's why. So people think that the housing market reacts like the stock market. So oftentimes every few years stocks get overbought. And then there's a correction. And then they go down. And people somehow think that the housing market is akin to the stock market. But in reality the housing market is more of a commodity.

00:01:24:02 - 00:01:44:22

It's closer to the price of eggs than it is the price of a stock. Because you live in a home, you don't live in a stock. That's number one. Number two, we printed a lot of money. So when there are more dollars in the market, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're able that someday there's going to be less dollars and that home values are going to drop.

00:01:44:24 - 00:02:03:21

What happens is you're you're buying power is just lower. Your dollars are just worthless. They're not gonna suddenly be worth more. So homes aren't more expensive as much as your dollars. Buy less of them, if that makes sense. So like the reason I say it's similar to a price of eggs is if you're waiting for eggs to go back to a dollar a dozen, that's probably not going to happen.

00:02:03:21 - 00:02:23:13

In the same way that housing prices aren't just suddenly going to be cheaper. Now there is an added element of this, which is supply and demand, obviously. So in some markets, you should definitely be very careful in the way that people have overbuilt. And now they think that like take Austin, Texas for example, values and oxygen of Texas have gone down because they built like a million houses.

00:02:23:14 - 00:02:40:02

Like all at once. You could just keep building in Austin, Texas, out further and further and further till you just have this massive city. Well, other areas aren't like that. So take Tampa, the Tampa market, or Saint Pete, for example. It's a peninsula you can't just build out. There's nowhere to build. So you have a fixed amount of inventory.

00:02:40:03 - 00:02:57:01

People are like, well, I think the values are going to drop and they will correct and they'll go down and up slightly. But I think that a lot of people would just wait because they literally think that that house that's 500,000 could easily be 300,000 in like six months. And that's that's not going to happen. Like they're not just going to crash down to zero.

00:02:57:03 - 00:03:14:16

There can be corrections. But then what ends up happening is if if that's your mentality, well I think housing prices are going to crash. Good luck trying to time the market. So like 96 out of the past 100 years home values have gone up. You're basically saying I'm going to wait until they go down. And then if they go down, you're going to hurry up and buy.

00:03:14:24 - 00:03:30:06

So is everybody else, by the way, which drives home values up. But you're going to be able to time the market in a way that trumps the three years it takes, while home values keep increasing while you're waiting, and then they drop, and then you think you're going to be able to buy there. And it just doesn't make logical sense when you look at it from that standpoint.

00:03:30:06 - 00:03:46:12

So really what you have to do is figure out if it fits your lifestyle, not if it fits some type of like future financial dream or that you think the market's going to crash in some way that strategically benefits only you and everybody else is kind of screwed. So that's really what you have to look at is like, do I want to own a home?

00:03:46:12 - 00:03:59:27

Do I want to do I see myself living in an area for a long period of time? Is this something that I want for my family? If the answer to that is no, then don't buy a house. But if the answer to that is yes, and you're waiting for like interest rates or values to crash, you're never going to be able to time the market.

00:03:59:27 - 00:04:04:09

You're not going to be able to figure that out. Just try to figure out what fits your lifestyle and go from there.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the Housing Market Behave Like the Stock Market?

No — the housing market is closer to a commodity, like the price of eggs, than it is to a stock. Stocks get overbought every few years and correct downward. Homes don't follow that pattern, because a home is something you actually live in — not an asset you're trading.

"It's closer to the price of eggs than it is the price of a stock." — Josh Jampedro

A big driver of this is the amount of money in the market, not a temporary bubble. When more dollars are in circulation, your buying power goes down — your dollars simply buy less. Home values aren't dropping back to where they were any more than eggs are going back to a dollar a dozen.

Why Don't Housing Prices Crash the Way People Expect?

Supply and demand still matter, and some markets are genuinely more vulnerable than others. Cities that can keep expanding outward — like Austin, Texas — have seen values and rents drop because they overbuilt all at once.

Tampa and St. Pete don't have that same risk, because they're geographically limited. As a peninsula, there's nowhere to build out further, which keeps inventory fixed. Corrections can still happen and values can move up or down slightly, but that's a different scenario from a home going from $500,000 to $300,000 in six months — which isn't realistic.

What Happens If You Try to Time the Housing Market?

Timing the market rarely works, because home values have gone up in roughly 96 of the last 100 years. If your strategy is to wait for a drop and then buy, you're competing with everyone else who has the exact same plan — which itself drives prices back up.

Meanwhile, values typically keep climbing during the years you spend waiting. By the time any dip arrives, you're trying to time an entry point that the rest of the market is chasing at the same moment. It doesn't hold up logically once you look at the actual pattern.

How Should You Actually Decide Whether to Buy?

Base the decision on your lifestyle, not a market prediction. Ask yourself:

• Do you want to own a home?
• Can you see yourself living in this area for a long period of time?
• Is this something you want for your family?

If the answer is no, don't buy. But if the answer is yes and the only thing holding you back is a belief that rates or prices are about to crash, that's not a strategy you can reliably execute. Timing the market isn't something you can figure out in advance — the better approach is deciding what fits your life and moving from there.

Mortgages are complex, so let me give you the tools you need to make the right decisions.