Time to buy? How rate cuts will impact housing affordability in Georgia

“I think the prices I was looking at for some houses ended up being twice as much as what they should have been. And then on top of that, the rates weren’t in a great spot,” the 35-year-old said.

In recent weeks, Mancini and others waiting for the right time to buy have had more to cheer about.

Rates increased from lows of about 3% at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic to exceed 7%. However, they have steadily declined this year. U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell indicated last month a first rate cut since 2020 could come this week at the Fed’s September meeting. Georgia Multiple Listing Service chief marketing officer John Ryan said in August that mortgage rates had dropped to their lowest level in 15 months, from 7.23% to 6.46% for a 30-year conventional loan.

“With interest rates coming down it’s going to allow people to afford a little bit more house with their payment,” Ryan said.

A drop by a single percentage point could save buyers hundreds of dollars every month. But the devil is in the details. The median price for a home in metro Atlanta is still about $400,000, making homeownership unaffordable to many people in the region.

Using an average rate of about 7%, for instance, and a down payment of 20%, or $80,000, the monthly principal and interest on a 30-year fixed rate loan on a $400,000 home would be about $2,100. Even at a 6% interest rate, payments are about $1,900 a month.

Considering the median rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Atlanta is more than $2,000, this might not seem so bad — until you consider homeowners have to cover hundreds of dollars more every month for property taxes and the cost of maintenance. That’s not to mention homeowners association fees for people considering a townhome or condo, and the rising cost of utilities and home insurance.

The problem is so pressing that presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have made housing a campaign issue. Harris says she will increase supply by building 3 million new homes, and demand by offering $25,000 in down payment support to first time homebuyers. But some experts have said the vice president’s lofty goals are unrealistic, and down payment assistance could make the situation worse if there aren’t enough homes.

Trump has blamed the problem on inflation under the Biden administration, and undocumented immigrants he says are straining the precious supply of housing, even though they make up less than 3% of the population. He says he will open up federal land to spur construction and offer tax incentives to help first-time buyers.

Despite the urgency of the crisis, a recent report by credit rating agency S&P Global Ratings underlined how it was decades in the making.

The report titled, “No Quick Fix For The U.S. Affordable Housing Shortage,” found home prices have increased faster than wage growth. Since 1992, the cost of a median-priced home was up 252%. Meanwhile, the median income had risen only 43%, according to the paper.

In 2022, the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates to combat inflation. Up to that point, many homebuyers could keep their housing costs below 30% of their income because of historically low interest rates. Above the 30% threshold, households are considered “cost burdened.” The resulting financial pressures mean families could have to go into debt or skip other priorities like saving for retirement, paying for health care, or even groceries.

“Home prices subsequently peaked in late 2022, but in the two years since, have stabilized and even declined slightly relative to incomes,” according to the report. “However, households across the country continue to face substantial affordability challenges, particularly in light of stubbornly high real estate prices and mortgage interest rates.”

Nora Wittstruck, an analyst with S&P Global, said rapid growth and migration to the Atlanta area from more expensive markets like the West Coast and Northeast would keep housing prices high.

“It is a relatively lower cost state to live in,” she said of Georgia. But “the attraction of higher paying jobs has displaced some people like teachers or nurses who may not be making $100,000 a year. As more people are living in the area, it creates a crunch.”

S&P analyst Bruce Thomson said U.S. census data showed one million Georgia households were struggling with housing costs by the end of 2022.

Thomson added that about a quarter of households in 104 of Georgia’s 159 counties are spending 30% or more of their household income on housing. According to the analyst, a reliable measure of housing affordability is in the median home price to income ratio, which measures housing affordability by dividing the median home price by the median household income. He said census data showed that the ratio in Fulton County is among the highest in the state, at 4.62.

“Over the period 2017 to 2022, there was just a 5% increase there,” Thomson wrote in a statement. “Meanwhile other metro area counties saw a more substantial increase over that period, including Clayton, Gwinnett, Cherokee, Cobb, and Forsyth, that saw 47%, 30%, 22%, 20%, and 10% increases in the median home price to income, respectively.”

In the Atlanta metro area, real estate agent Nicole Howard said she believes rate cuts could make a difference. She was hoping they would at least persuade people to enter the market.

“The future does look a lot better,” she said. “Right now, we’re lacking inventory because a lot of people are on the fence.”

According to an August report by the real estate brokerage firm Redfin, nationwide about 86% of homeowners have an interest rate below 6%. The report said this creates a “lock-in effect” — meaning homeowners are more likely to stay where they are rather than upscale or downsize. For the 22% of Americans that have a rate below 3% there is even less incentive to move.

“People who have a 3% interest rate theoretically are not going to sell their house and buy as prices have gone up because they’d be looking at more than doubling their interest rate,” said Bill Rawlings, a broker with Sotheby’s International Realty in Alpharetta.

If there is relief for homebuyers, it could be short-lived in a seller’s market. Rawlings echoes other experts when he says lower interest rates will increase demand and prices. He said the idea that a rate cut offers much relief is “a bit of fallacy.”

“When the interest rates come down, more people will jump into the market, which means the house that’s $400,000 today will push up to $425,000 (or) $435,000,” he said.

But there are bright spots. For one, current market conditions are nothing like those seen during the height of the pandemic, when people were lining up around the block to see houses or forced into bidding wars.

But for homebuyers like Mancini, the past year has been an anxious wait. Now rates are falling, he is going to start looking for a townhome or condo in the metro area. He wants to build equity.

And Mancini should have more options. According to Georgia MLS data, there were close to 18,000 active listings last month in Atlanta’s 12 core county region. While this falls short of the inventory needed to meet demand, according to Ryan, it’s a 60% increase on active listings over the same time last year, when there were about 10,000 listed homes.

Even so, the Atlanta market is still 35,000 homes short of a “balanced market” and the soaring price of lots and building costs are keeping entry-level homes expensive. But according to Ryan, the market is finally moving in the “right direction” and with lower rates people will have more buying power.

“The fact that we’ve seen more inventory come on the market, it’s going to open up their options of what they can see,” Ryan said.