Is it a good time to purchase a home?

One of the best benefits of buying a home (aside from equity) is that there is more protection to keeping a roof over your head than renting. One of those benefits emerged from the COVID-19 relief, known as the "Forbearance Program". This program allows you to push back your mortgage payments for at least 3 months (each lender has a different program, so ask for details and you can always contact me if you need clarification). With that, those banks who take on portfolio loans (which means, they don't sell their loans to the secondary market) are starting to feel the pressure of not receiving payments. I'm already hearing about larger financial institutions that are tightening up their loan requirements, making it more difficult to get approved for a loan, like requiring a minimum of 700 credit score and a 20% down payment. This is going to be problematic for the vast majority of people who don't have access to large amounts of liquid funds.