How to make a case for buying now: FOMO surfaces in the data

The builder incentive may be worth more than the rate. In Dallas-Fort Worth, new-home buyers may be focusing on the wrong number. Mortgage rates get nearly all the attention. Buyers watch them, calculate payments around them, and sometimes postpone a purchase, waiting for them to fall. But for buyers who are financially ready and already planning to purchase a new home in Dallas-Fort Worth, this may be one of the better times to buy, not because mortgage rates are attractive, but because builders are motivated. The opportunity is not cheap money. It is negotiating leverage. Across DFW, builders are using rate buydowns, closing-cost assistance, inventory discounts, lot-premium reductions, appliance packages and design credits to maintain sales pace and move completed homes. Those incentives can be worth $20,000, $25,000, or more in economic value. Unlike some hoped-for future mortgage rate, that value exists today. If rates eventually fall and buyer traffic returns, those incentives may disappear faster than many buyers expect. The better question for a new-home buyer is no longer simply: “Where will mortgage rates be next year?” It is, rather, “What is the total economic value of b...