The average person does not realize the incredible impact that interest rates have on your monthly payment when you buy a home.  Let’s say you currently have enough to get a loan of $150,000 for 30 years at 5.25 percent.  Your monthly principal and interest payment would be $828.31.  If spent a year saving $10,000 so your loan amount became $140,000 but in the meantime mortgage rates went up just one basis point to 6.25 percent, your monthly P&I payment would then be $862. 
 
Yes, in this scenario your loan amount would actually be higher even though you put down an additional $10,000.  And this doesn’t even take into account the possibility of the house’s price going up, which would drive up your monthly payment even further.
 
Mortgage rates remain near record lows, but near the end of March, the Federal Reserve is scheduled to stop buying up mortgage-backed securities, a practice that has helped to keep these rates down.  Of course, we can’t say with any certainty that rates will definitely rise in the next year, but we can be fairly certain that they won’t be getting too much lower anytime soon. 
 
The truth is that we are currently in one of the best markets for buyers this area has ever seen.  If you can afford to buy, now is the time to do it.