Should You Rent or Own Real Estate in 2025?

Welcome back to the Roots Podcast. I'm Max Moore, joined by my host Tyler Lingal. And today we're going to answer the burning question, should you rent or should you own in 2025? I think more than ever, I'm getting people texting me asking this exact debate, like, "Hey, I think I'm ready to buy a house. Should I or should I continue to go sign a lease?" Maybe moving. They've been staying with their parents to stack up capital to be able to move out. Um, and and debating on if that first move should be a rental or not. I like to favor back to one stop. Obviously, we're real estate professionals, so we'd love to help you move at any time and whatever time and pace that is. Right now, I think we have an opportunity unlike uh the future currently to purchase a home, which is that when we look at home sales in 2025, we're only up like 3ish% across the the nation. Next year, they're projecting up 14%. with more inventory, more opportunity, stronger prices, and lower rates. I do not want to be a homeowner in 2026. It seems terrifying, like a a home buyer going out and trying to buy their first home uh because of the sheer amount of competition that will be in the marketplace. And I don't want to do anything out of fear. So, I want to highlight like why it's good now to purchase as opposed to going and and being competitive. But uh I reflect back on 2019 when I was purchasing my first residence. I had to offer on seven different homes. I got so discouraged that I stopped offering on homes. And by the luck of a draw, somebody in our fam or and like family friend was selling and reached out knowing that we were looking for a similar property like hey would you like to that's the only way we bought a house. We were we were priced out as a first- time home buyer 3 and a half% like that. could not compete in that in that sub market of Hendricks County. It was wild. Right now, you can you can compete and you can get in. I mean, what's your experience been like working with first- time home buyers in 2025? It's a breeze. The easiest year ever. We're touring so many homes that it's like this has been on the market 45 days, 80 days, 100 days, right? How low can we get them? It's tough being a listing agent right now. Yeah. having very hard conversations. Why do you think that is just the inventory, the lock in effect? All the people that were holding on to the 3% rates are like, "Screw it. We got to sell. Got to move. House is too small. Tons of equity in it, right? Home equity here, savings here nationwide." So, it's like they're they're unloading. People are people are spraying the machine gun and unloading properties right now. We know we've been listing left and right. Left and right. and some are selling when they're priced appropriately. So, um I think next year will not be another repeat of 2021 or 2020, but it might look like 2019. Yeah. Which I'm telling you was hard to buy in like everybody is underscoring like that that is what I keep hearing is that 2025 right now buyers have the leverage. In 2026 buyers will actually go out and buy because rates will be lower. And what I'm like trying to spread is that I was the person in 2018 who signed the lease. I waited. I had a terrible experience leasing, flooded apartment, mold, had to live in it. They didn't put me up in a hotel. It was awful. Would never go back and do that again. And I spent 15,600 bucks a month on this place. Right. Right. That could have been going towards equity. And I would have been able to get a better home. Mhm. Easier, I I should say. Right. The stat I saw this week that jumped out to me, 50% of homes are still selling under 10 days. What buyer market are we in? Homes overpriced, right, are selling 40 plus. It literally jumps from 10 on average to a appropriately priced home to the next leap, the next shelf is 45 days on market. It You're right. They are under overpriced, right? You're just trying to back them down to reality, right? because people are needing to sell, right? So, it's a dance. You're trying to bake in, right, their closing cost and realtor fees into the price so they can wedge out a profit when it's like the market is the market. You got to sell for what it is, right? And it's a more balanced market, right? Is just the reality. And having a uh opportunistic approach of walking into that marketplace knowing that you may be sacrificing for se on rate that could potentially drop or not. We can get that in closing cost bought down pretty easily. So, where do you think interest rate lands? This is the question people want to know. Spring of next year. It's March. Tulips are out. Where is the rate at? If rates have a five, even if they're 5. 99, it's over. It's utter chaos. It's absolutely utter chaos. The first time home buyer gets completely stomped on. Oh, yeah. I don't know if we see that in the year. First time home buyers should be shopping right now. They need to Oh, Tyler, you're the realtor saying yes because it's so much easier. Yeah. It's like the discount aisle is huge. Yeah. Right. And there's actually options. Oh, that's that's a nice jacket. That's a nice sweater. That's your home. Get out there and actually go buy it. What the age are you waiting on? Right. I don't know what all these people are waiting on. Oh, yeah. I have a lease. I don't care. Pay 2500 to break the lease. You don't have to pay your mortgage first month. Tell the seller to pay you out of the freaking lease. You could probably Everyone focuses on one number, the interest rate. Yeah. People magnifying interest rate. Interest rate. They don't think about supply demand. And supply is here and demand is like still here. We're not like totally demand's down here. Supply No, we're like here, right? We're like here, but it's like it's going to be here. Demand supply. Yeah. And it'll be game over. I don't think that happens all the way through next year. I think that's 2027. I think what we're talking about bleeds into the next uh the next cycle, right? The opportunity that is out there for anybody looking to make a move in the next two, like you've had that conversation, you've agreed on it is make the sacrifice and just move in the winter. Yeah. If you're if you're looking for a discount, you're looking for whatever you've been sitting on the sidelines over, just move in the winter and you rentals, too. I mean, right now, think about how many turnkey rentals we have listed, not just us. If you want to buy a house that in four years can have crazy equity in, just buy one of these turnkey gate rentals. Yeah. And boost the rents and sell it to homeowner and kick the tenant out eventually. Hate to say kick people out. That's not what we're all about. But I'm just like that's why they're cheap cuz no one wants to buy a tenanted property right now. Mhm. The amount of calls I'm getting and you're getting on, hey, I have this this uh this rented property, the rents are 1100. Can I sell it for uh 160,000? No. Buy, right? But we'll list it. Sure. And then it'll say like the offset. You got to think, guys, that's going to be a 1300 payment for someone and it's rented for 1,100. People are not understanding. They bought it at a 4% rate, right? You can't sell it right now. So, the price has got to go down. someone else is going to get that arbitrage benefit of probably selling when it's when the rates are back at 5%. It's cyclical coupled with the fact that 2028 will be a year of just mass home boom, right? You need you want to be on the wave. We're we have a 10% appreciation coming down the pipe about to a power up about to hit our market very soon. Yeah. Just look at the downtown. There's a freaking brand new skyscraper coming in. Multiple brand new mall coming in. Brand new city. Multiple all over the place. Planefield, Caramel, Westfield, they're all getting developed more. So, y I think we've tooted Indy's horn enough. We could probably Yeah. stamp this. I think you should just you should I mean, if you want one of those turnkey rentals, I've got 68 sitting on the back burner that'll be sold in the next 12 months at some capacity. So, uh yeah, go direct to Max. I mean, you'll figure it out. Yeah. Schedule a call, talk to us direct. Yeah. Stop waiting on the sidelines and guessing. And make sure to subscribe. Come to our next master class. Peace.