Now that mortgage rates are falling slightly this year, more homebuyers in San Antonio and across the U.S. are entering the market. Local real estate agent Jessica Conrad has some advice.
Conrad, an Air Force veteran and host of PechaKucha San Antonio and the “Attainable Housing” radio program, said that buyers and sellers should be aware of new rules surrounding negotiable broker fees and commissions and they should not expect interest rates to drop down to pandemic levels.
And specifically for buyers, she added, “your first home doesn’t have to be your forever home.”
There are a multitude of factors that should go into making the decision to buy a home, Conrad told San Antonio Report co-founder Robert Rivard on the latest episode of his bigcitysmalltown podcast.
“It’s all about experiences and what you can afford to do,” she said. While being a homeowner may be a dream for many, “I would also be remiss if I didn’t say that it’s expensive to own a house.”
It’s not just the mortgage and property taxes, it’s maintenance — planned or unexpected — that can really start to add up, she said.
Conrad recommends looking into home warranty plans and programs that offer downpayment assistance to lower monthly payments. The City of San Antonio has such a program for lower-income first-time homebuyers as do the State of Texas and the federal government.
Last week, mortgage rates were about 6.4% — a full point lower than this time last year. If someone is ready to buy a home, she cautioned against waiting too long for interest rates to drop much further.
During the pandemic in early 2021, a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped below 3%.
“It’s unprecedented that we had interest rates that low,” Conrad said. “I actually had some clients of mine … [buy] their house in 2021 and they got their interest rate down to 1.75%.”
“I don’t have a crystal ball,” Conrad said, but she doesn’t expect mortgage rates to fall significantly any time soon. “For anyone waiting for the interest rate to drop down to 4[%], I fear you’d be waiting for the next pandemic.”
When Conrad isn’t selling homes, sharing wisdom or hosting the entertaining, rapid-fire educational spectacle that is PechaKucha, you can find her out in the community volunteering and enjoying her adopted city.
You can also find her fostering tiny kittens, as she recently found a litter of five under her home, she told Rivard.
“That takes up a lot of my time,” Conrad said. Thanks to the Footbridge Foundation, which is covering the kittens’ food and medical bills, she’s confident they’ll find forever homes once they are old enough to be adopted.
Tune in to episode No. 76 to hear more about Conrad’s journey from D.C. to Tennessee to Atlanta to San Antonio, her perspective on minority-majority cities, Empower House San Antonio’s radio station and more real estate insights.
