When it comes to navigating the Northland’s housing market, there’s not as many homes available on the market. While there are fewer houses for sale, the increased demands is causing even higher mortgages.

Kevin Kalligher, a real estate sales executive with RE/Max Results, said the prices of homes have been steadily increasing for years.

“Mortgage interest rates are at 8% right now. That’s the highest they’ve been since the year 2000,” Kalligher said. “Now we’re seeing houses that were selling 10% above the asking price two or three months ago.”

However, if more houses were built and available for sale it wouldn’t necessarily lower the higher mortgage rates.

“It’s a really interesting dynamic right now because we have all time low inventory, which puts some pressure on consumers because, ‘Hey, we only have so many houses here to buy or to choose from.'” Kalligher said. “But also we’ve got these rates that are really high, so they’re a bit more expensive, than they have been, say three years ago or two years ago in 2021.”

Kalligher said when it comes to buying a home there are several figures determining the mortgage price.

“Condition, location and pricing. Those are your big three factors to take into consideration in any neighborhood,” Kalligher said. “There’s two reasons the house doesn’t sell it either. Price and condition, those are the two. If you whittle down everything, those are the main factors.”

Kalligher said the Northland’s housing market is currently a seller’s market, and the price of loans have several variables.

“It’s going to depend on, your credit score, your loan to debt ratio, things like that,” Kalligher said. “But I think you can if you’re going out and you’re shopping for a loan right now, you can expect anywhere from 7.6 to 8%, somewhere in there for a standard 30 year fixed rate.”

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