Some Who Rushed To Buy Homes During The Pandemic Now Regret It
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 16 March 2022
⏱️ 12 minutes
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Summary
NPR heard from many new homeowners who made compromises as they rushed to buy. Some even waived inspections or moved sight-unseen.
Hyojung Lee, a professor at Virginia Tech, explains how low interest rates, lockdowns and a desire to stop renting created the real estate scramble.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | the day we moved in our air conditioner broke. Um, and so that was like the first instance |
| 0:05.9 | of, uh, this is a mistake. That is Lauren Morgan. She's 30 years old and she and her husband |
| 0:12.9 | are now the new owners of a Quaint Home in Norwood, Massachusetts, 30 minutes south of downtown |
| 0:18.9 | Boston. They moved in June of 2021 and every time something does come up, I say to my husband, |
| 0:26.0 | like, maybe we should be renting. Like if only we were so renting, then the landlord could |
| 0:31.7 | deal with this. Instead, the couple decided to buy a home and after they made an offer on |
| 0:37.6 | this house, they took a bit of a risk to beat out the other competitors. We made the decision |
| 0:42.6 | to wave an inspection. We have since had plumbing issues. We currently have a hole in our dining |
| 0:49.6 | room ceiling because we just had a leak in our plumbing. Wait, there's more in the coldest |
| 0:54.6 | week of, of the winter, our furnace broke, getting a new HVAC system. So ultimately, I think, |
| 0:59.6 | you know, all in all, it's probably cost us around $20,000. What a huge reason Morgan and |
| 1:06.7 | her husband rushed into this home purchase is because they wanted out of the rental market. |
| 1:12.1 | My husband and I were both so sick of being on top of other people all the time, not only |
| 1:18.2 | with COVID, but just, you know, people being loud neighbors or disrespectful or not having |
| 1:22.9 | control really over the space that you live in. And the Morgan's, I mean, they're not unique. |
| 1:28.2 | NPR has heard from a lot of first time home buyers who make compromises because they were desperate |
| 1:35.1 | to stop renting, like Abby Colbertson in Nashville. I've rented the same apartment for 12 years |
| 1:41.5 | in Nashville and recently got word that we are under new ownership and management and rent |
| 1:49.9 | increases going up in the past year and take Maya Brotkey from Oakland. When COVID hit my wife |
| 1:58.1 | owned a small business and overnight she didn't, we were living in the Bay Area at the time and |
| 2:05.0 | my employment was stable, but without her income, we weren't going to be able to continue to |
| 2:10.3 | afford rent there. Consider this. The pandemic created a spike in demand for housing that sent |
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