You might ask yourself – is timing the housing market possible? The short answer is never. Timing your purchase just right in tandem with economic patterns lacks the ability to predict with any degree of accuracy.
Many reports get published, predictions are made and some of them can be very close to spot on. However, the reality is it’s near impossible timing the housing market. Another challenge is that interest rates are most often higher during a recession (or depressed). This means household incomes might not be keeping up with the market. For that reason, fewer people can qualify for a home purchase during down times, than in prosperous times.
Why it’s hard timing the housing market
When it comes to timing the market, another big factor is affordability. That does seem to overstate the obvious but companies are typically not awarding employees with significant raises and cutting more than they are hiring. There are also heated battles being fought over minimum wage requirements all across the nation.
Did you realize that it’s been 5 years since the last time the federal minimum wage was raised? On October 10, 2015 the Labor Department is participating in a National Day of Action. Workers, government officials and business owners show their support for increasing the minimum wage. They use the hashtag #RaiseTheWage It highlights why it’s time to increase the minimum wage in this country from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour.
Since 2014, 13 states — including California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia — as well as Washington, D.C., have already taken action to raise their minimum wage.
A rising minimum wage
As of Jan. 1, 2015, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon and Washington increased minimum wage above $7.25. There are of course, 2 sides to the argument. Business owners claim if the wage rises to $10.10 per hour they’ll have to cut staff because of the increased payroll. On the other side, the employee argues that with all of the costs of living continuing to rise, how are they expected to raise their families. It seems impossible with a paycheck that never comes close to matching the rate of inflation. It’s a good debate and it will be very interesting to see how things play out in October. What side will you be on?
Whatever change does take place, we can bet it’s going to impact consumer spending for certain across the board.
