LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — To help "tame inflation," the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by three-quarters of a point for the fourth time in a row on Wednesday.
Herman Cochrane is the owner of a home in Henderson. He has been trying to sell his house for about three months now, but they still haven't been able to seal the deal. He says part of it is because of these interest rate spikes making it harder to sell.
"I haven't gotten one offer, not one single one," Cochrane said.
He tells us he put his home on the market back in august and has not been able to get a buyer to sign on the dotted line, he blames the continued increase in interest rates. it has been raising the monthly mortgage rate for some buyers by up to 800 dollars a month.
"We even thought that by lowering the rate to 2.99 would be a big incentive but so far there are still no bites," Cochrane said.
Founder of New Home Experts, Jennifer Graff says Cochrane is not alone. She says as a result of the interest rate hikes, the number of homes on the market has gone up about 123% from this time last year, with about 8400 homes up for sale.
In her 20 years of experience with real estate, she says she has never seen anything like this.
"We are at about 7.25% right now which is just something people have not seen before so it has affected our market locally and sales have slowed down significantly," Graff said.
she says, overall, borrowing money has now become much more expensive, but it is necessary to help bring down inflation costs.
Interest on everything like credit cards, car payments, and even student loans will be going up, something Cochrane says is difficult to deal with when you're trying to sell your home.
"interest rates are out of control, and something has to change, or else I don't know what people are going to do," said Cochrane.
graff says although borrowing money is more expensive buyers do have a bit of an advantage.
She says interest rates are expected to go up again so it's important to look at your options.
