Rising interest rates' impact on Western New York homes

Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - With mortgage rates now up to 7%, some are wondering how this will affect Buffalo's home market. One realtor says the current rate is not unreasonable.

John Leonardi of the Buffalo Niagara Association of Realtors says when the Federal Reserve said it wasn't going to be raising lowering rates, people pulled away and went on the sidelines in the hopes of rates dropping.

"The reality is, interest rates are hovering right around 6-7%, and they are not going to be coming down for a while, unfortunately," said Leonardi in an interview with WBEN.

He now says those people are coming back into the market, realizing that interest rates are not really going to drop down significantly anytime soon.

Leonardi says if you know someone with a 3% mortgage, that was an anomaly and outlier.

"If you look back historically, over the last several decades, interest rates hovered between 4.5% and 5.5%, on average, so they're really not out of line at 7%," Leonardi explained.

So what's Leonardi's advice? Take a look at your statements.

"The interest rate on credit cards are in the 20s, almost 30%. So if you want to build wealth and get ahead of the game, even at 7%, it makes sense to go ahead and buy the home that you've been wanting to buy, instead of waiting on the sidelines, looking in the hopes of interest rates coming down," Leonardi advised.

Leonardi says Western New York's home supply is at three-and-a-half months.

"It's a lot better than it has been. On average, you want to have six months worth of supply," he said.

With spring being the peak season, you can expect to start seeing more properties on the market.