Lavanya's Connecticut Real Estate - Without the Hype

 Right now, American homeowners are sitting on a record $11.5 trillion in tappable equity.  That’s equity you could access without selling your home, while keeping at least a 20% cushion in place. And, with interest rates on home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) falling, this may be the most affordable time in years to tap into your home’s value. But does it make sense to borrow now, or should you wait? Let’s break down the numbers, what this trend means for homeowners, and how to know if leveraging your equity is the right move for you. Record-Breaking Equity According to the June 2025 Mortgage Monitor by ICE Mortgage Technology: U.S. homeowners hold $17.6 trillion in total home equity $11.5 trillion of that is considered “tappable”—available for borrowing while maintaining 20% equity The average homeowner has about $212,000 in tappable equity 48 million mortgage holders now have access to this equity, an all-time high Despite all that equity, most homeowners haven’t touched...

 Can you believe we’re already halfway through 2025? As we head into the second half of the year, a lot of buyers and sellers are asking the same thing: What’s next for the housing market? While no forecast is guaranteed, economists from Fannie Mae, Zillow, NAR, MBA, and others have released updated projections on everything from home prices and mortgage rates to sales activity and market recovery. In this post, I’ve rounded up the key takeaways from their mid-year outlooks—and added a breakdown of what they could mean for our local market here in  Connecticut Home Price Forecasts Most housing economists agree: prices will rise, but not by much. And depending on where you live, they could even decline. Home price forecasts for 2025: Cotality: +4.3% from April 2025 to April 2026 Fannie Mae: +4.1% in 2025 Home Price Expectations Survey (HPES): +3.3% NAR: +3% in 2025, +4% in 2026 MBA: +1.3% in 2025, <1% in 2026 Zillow: -1.4%, an improvement from its earlier prediction of...

 Buying a home hasn’t exactly felt “easy” the last few years. The past few years have seen intense competition, high prices, and “better luck next time” bidding wars.  But now, things are shifting.  While we’re not in a full-blown buyer’s market just yet, inventory is up, competition is cooling, and sellers (and even builders) are making moves to attract serious buyers. Here are five signs the market is turning, and why now might be the time to start (or restart) your home search. 1. Sellers Are Actually Offering Help Remember when sellers wouldn’t even look at your offer unless it was over asking and waived every contingency? Those days are fading. In early 2025, 44% of home sellers offered concessions, including things like covering closing costs, mortgage-rate buydowns, or money for repairs, according to Redfin . That’s just shy of the all-time high, and it reflects the reality of today’s market: sellers have more competition and buyers have more power. If you’re think...

 For decades, buyers have been told to follow one simple rule: Don’t spend more than 30% of your income on housing. That is the gold standard. The budget benchmark. The line in the sand between “affordable” and “overextended.” But in 2025, that line no longer seems attainable. According to a Realtor.com® Affordability Report , the typical U.S. household would need to spend 44.6% of their income to buy a median-priced home today. And in cities like Los Angeles, that number jumps to over 100%. So if you’re staring down home prices, crunching the numbers, and wondering why the math doesn’t add up anymore, you’re not alone. The old rulebook doesn’t work in this market. But that doesn’t mean you’re stuck. It just means it’s time to budget differently. What the 30% Rule Got Right (and What It Missed) The 30% rule was never meant to be a law. It came from a 1969 housing policy called the Brooke Amendment , with capped public housing rent at 25% of a tenant’s income. In the early 1980s, th...