As seen on North Loop News
Despite higher mortgage rates and President Trump’s generally negative impact on the nation’s housing market, there are a few rays of sunlight filtering through for Chicago’s young first-time home buyers.
By Don DeBat
5-Feb-17 – The nation’s hottest housing markets have one determining factor in common – employment opportunities. Cities with jobs in growing fields like technology are drawing residents in droves.
Chicago currently is identified as the nation’s #1 housing market, soon to be transformed by technology, according to a recent survey by Modis, an IT-staffing provider. The other top tech job cities are Houston, Boston, Denver, and Philadelphia.
Fifty-one percent of those surveyed ranked Chicago as the top tech hot spot of the future. The Windy City is likely to attract younger professionals who have worked in technology for five years or less, the Modis survey reported.
The United States labor market got off to a strong start in January when employers added 227,000 jobs amid a burst of confidence following President Trump’s election. The retail, construction, and financial services sectors posted the biggest job gains.
The ValueInsured Housing Confidence Index reported that seven of ten Americans surveyed are “cautiously optimistic” about the 2017 housing market, and 62 percent of non-home-owning Millennials believe the market will turn in their favor this year.
Forty-four percent of non-home-owning Millennials are confident they can afford a down payment, and 41 percent are expecting it to be easier to buy a home in 2017. A Freddie Mac survey shows 40 percent of non-home-owning Millennials are making saving for a down payment a priority.
However, the percentage of first-time home buyers who plan to purchase a home during the 2017 spring real estate season has declined ten percent since October 2016 due to concerns of higher mortgage rates.
Rising mortgage rates loom like a black cloud on the horizon and that could put a damper on demand for both new and existing homes and condominiums in 2017, economists say.