More People Buying Homes for the First Time

Buying a house for the first time can be a challenge for many people, even if the Housing Market ...  More »

Buying a house for the first time can be a challenge for many people, even if the Housing Market is good for both buyers and sellers. Reporter Tracy Fugere has more on what first-time homebuyers are facing in this region... After renting for years, Eve Kostelecky and her husband are ready to move in to their new house in Mandan. (Eve Kostelecky/First-time Homebuyer) We're renting right now and we thought we would rent for a while and then a realtor called and said, 'listen, I've got a great deal for you...you should check it out to see if this is something you are interested in.' And so it really happend quite fast...two days. Dave Flohr with the North Dakota Housing Finance Agency says this year there have been a record number of people buying homes for the first time. (Dave Flohr/Home Ownership Director) First-time homebuyer definition under our program is somebody who hasn't owned a home or residence in the last three years. So it's a very flexible defintion of what a first-time homebuyer is. You know if you owned a home here in Bismarck five years ago and sold it and now you want to buy another one, you would be eligible under this program. Right now there is good appreciation of homes for sellers...and low interest rates make buying homes more affordable. (Nancy Deichert/Bis-Man Board of Realtors) And so we are very fortunate that it is a buyers and a sellers market right now. There is inventory out there. People are getting good returns on their real estate investment when they sell and there are still very favorable interest rates for buyers. Right now interest rates are around six-point-five-percent. Deichert says 24 years agointerest was more than double that. In Bismarck, I'm Tracy Fugere for KX News. For multiple listings that the Bismarck-Mandan Board of Realtors regulatego to www.bismarckmandanhomes.com. And for more information on first-time homebuyer programsgo to www.ndhfa.org.  « Less