Applications for new home purchase mortgages have fallen to their lowest in 28 years according to new data from Bloomberg. Meaning despite a growing population, even fewer buyers are hoping to get a mortgage for a new home today than in the Great Recession of 2008. 

For those who had been hoping to join the stampede to cheaper parts of the country with lower property taxes, that boat may well have sailed already. With chances of being able to sell your home now down dramatically, and falling. Especially with the cooler weather coming, and seasonal chilling of the property market through fall and the end of year. 

Saving your home and finances may now be a matter of appealing your annual property tax bill, and choosing to shelter in place. 

Buyers Give Up On Trying To Get Mortgages

Not only has the Northeast already become one of the least desirable parts of the country to buy property, it is also one of the most prohibitively expensive. 

Rising interest rates have compounded recent house price growth. Then add to that extreme inflation in living costs, and other associated housing costs, like insurance, and most no longer find buying a home appealing, even if they could afford it. 

Many have also learned the hard way that the cost of owning a home only keeps going up, even if you have no mortgage. Suffolk County recently managed to pull in another $2M on water bills after threatening tax liens on homeowners properties who were struggling to keep their water on. 

Others are reporting that the new energy solutions they were lured into switching to had led to their bills doubling. 

Then, with many real estate lenders doing away with human customer service in favor of AI chatbots and automated credit decision making tools, banks have become even harder and less trustworthy to do business with. 

Financial Distress Is Growing

The latest round of bank data shows that far more borrowers fell behind on their bills, or lenders have given up any hope of them catching up in the past quarter.

This applied to home loans, business properties, credit cards, business and auto loans. The bulk of this failing debt seems to be moving ever closer to a surge in repossessions and foreclosures. A trend that will likely make it even less appealing to buy and try to finance a home, as values plummet. 

Now is the time to get ahead of this. 

Appeal Your Property Taxes 

If you can’t sell your home, the best thing you can do is to reduce your expenses as much as possible, and bunker down until the economy eventually flatlines and begins to recover. 

One of the most impactful ways to do this is to get the help of Property Tax Adjusters, Ltd. to reduce your annual property tax bills. Then use those savings as an emergency financial cushion, or to offset other rising living and housing costs.