PENSACOLA, Fla. – According to some real estate agents in our area, now is a good time to buy a home in the U.S. The reason is falling mortgage rates.

The average interest rate on 30-year mortgages in the U.S. has fallen to 6.46%, the lowest in over a year. The peak was 7.79% last year, according to Freddie Mac.

“It really impacts affordability for every home buyer,” says real estate agent Sean Kramer. “There will be more buyers coming into the market who qualify. Our demand will increase.”

Kramer of Levin Rinke Realty spoke to WEAR News about what that demand might look like.

“According to our data and statistics, about two million new homebuyers can now afford a home,” Kramer says. “That also means about two million people could refinance their home based on their previous mortgage rate to make it more affordable.”

Terry Mahoney, a real estate agent with Keller Williams Realty Gulf Coast, says home prices in the Northwest Florida region have been rising significantly for some time now. She predicts prices will continue to rise.

“When supply increases, demand decreases, but the opposite also happens,” says Mahoney. “So when interest rates fall, that leads to rising prices.”

Redfin reports that Florida home prices increased 1.3% year over year in July 2024. The median sales price for a home in the Sunshine State is nearly $410,000 last month. That’s up from $404,000 in 2023 and $341,000 in 2022.

The brokers say now is a good time to buy.

“Buyers have a bargaining power right now that they haven’t had in recent years,” Kramer says. “We’ve found that people are more willing to negotiate on prices, and we expect that as demand increases, prices will also go up. And I think buyers will have less opportunity to negotiate in the future as prices go up.”

Mahoney says waiting for mortgage rates to drop could have consequences. The longer you wait, the longer you delay building equity in your home.

“Another reason is that falling interest rates mean there will be more and more buyers,” says Mahoney. “While that will drive up prices, it will also mean there will be multiple offers. That will make it more difficult for a buyer to actually secure a home.”