Does the perfect time to buy exist?
That’s the question at the heart of AD Mortgage’s study of 50 states plus DC, covering data from 2000 to 2022.
No doubt, if you’ve been working with buyers long enough, you’ve heard at least one of them say they want to wait a year or so for “rates to go down.” And you know how easily that can backfire.
Case in point: on September 11, 2025, the 30-year fixed sat at 6.27%. One year later, they’ve topped 7%.
Yet, as AD Mortgage found, even when rates did drop year over year, that didn’t guarantee a better outcome for buyers who waited.
If you know how to talk to your buyers about the risks of waiting (and banking on a market that doesn’t yet exist), you know how valuable it is to have real data on your side.
Read on for the biggest takeaways from this report and how to use them in your conversations.
The Headline Number: Buying Now Won 61% of the Time
AD Mortgage built the study around one comparison, repeated for every state and year from 2000 to 2022: buy a home now, or wait two years and buy later.
For each scenario, the firm calculated:
- Average home price
- A 15% down payment
- A monthly mortgage payment based on that year’s average 30-year fixed rate
- Two years of savings at 10% of median household income, for the waiting scenario
Whichever path cost less overall counted as the winner for that state and year.
Across every state and year combination, buying now came out ahead 61% of the time. The win rate wasn’t even across the map:
- California and Florida: 74%, the highest of any states in the study
- West Virginia: 39%, the lowest
- Iowa: 48%, the only other state under 50%
Local price growth explains a good part of that spread. Markets where prices climbed fast punished buyers who waited. Slower-growing markets gave waiting a better shot.
AD Mortgage CEO Max Slyusarchuk summed up the finding this way:
“After 30 years in the mortgage industry my advice to home buyers is not to wait if the deal makes sense to you. Trying to predict the market is not a guarantee, as this study proves.”
Lower Mortgage Rates Didn’t Guarantee Waiting Was Smarter
Ask a buyer why they want to wait, and rates generally top the list of reasons. If rates go down, the home costs less to buy, or so the reasoning goes. If that were true, and rates did go down, waiting would pay off, all other things being equal.
But the study found two stretches that put the link between lower rates and better outcomes into question:
- 2000 to 2002: the average rate fell from 8.05% to 6.54%, and buying now won only 34% of scenarios that stretch
- 2013 to 2015: the average rate moved from 3.98% to 3.85%, and buying now in 2013, the higher-rate year, won 84% of scenarios
Granted, buying in the higher-rate year was more of a win with the stretch that had the smallest drop in rates. But it still shows buying at a lower rate doesn’t guarantee better affordability.
Home prices and savings pace move the number just as much, sometimes more.
The Advantage Rarely Split the Difference
One strategy won by a wide margin in most years. Here’s how the win rate for buying now moved across the full period:
- 2003 to 2005: buy now won 94% to 100% of scenarios
- 2007 to 2010: buy now dropped to 0% every year, the strongest stretch for waiting in the whole study (thanks to the Great Financial Crisis)
- 2015 to 2017: buy now won 92% to 100% of scenarios again
- 2018: a one-year dip to 2%
- 2020 to 2022: buy now held at 100% every year
The year 2018 is an outlier mainly because the study compares buying in 2018 to buying in 2020 (two years later). Mortgage rates fell hard between those two points, from an average around 4.54% in 2018 to around 3.11% in 2020. Meanwhile, home prices hadn’t yet gone through the sharp run-up that hit in 2021 and 2022.
Buyers in 2018 had no way of knowing what would happen in 2020, just as buyers in 2021 couldn’t predict where rates would fall two years later in 2023.
Readiness Mattered More Than Timing
AD Mortgage’s conclusion points past both mortgage rates and home prices. Financial readiness predicted good outcomes more than market timing did, across the full 23 years.
No single factor decided the winning strategy on its own:
- Rate direction
- Price growth
- How fast a buyer could save
Even when rates fell, waiting didn’t always pay off. Home prices sometimes rose enough in the meantime to erase the benefit of extra savings and a lower rate.
So, if you’re working with buyers right now, you can help them make the best decision for them by walking them through one practical question:
Can you afford the home today?
Here’s the Play for Agents
The AD Mortgage study gives agents a short, data-backed answer for the buyer who wants to wait and see.
Here’s a script you can use today, created using the BAMx Script Advisor and based on the report’s four key findings:
“Totally get it, rates are real and they matter. Can I share one thing that might reframe this a little? A recent study looked at every buy-or-wait scenario from 2000 to 2022. In 61% of cases, buying sooner led to a better financial outcome, even when rates were higher. The people who came out ahead weren’t the ones who timed the market perfectly, they were the ones who were financially ready and moved. So my question for you is: is it actually rates holding you back, or is it something else?”
If the buyer pushes back, saying, “But they could drop a lot!” here’s what you say in response:
“They could. And if they do, every buyer who’s been waiting jumps in at the same time. More competition, higher prices. The study actually showed that lower rates didn’t automatically make waiting the better call.
“So what’s the worst thing that happens if we write at today’s rate and rates drop later? You run the numbers to see if refinancing makes sense. What’s the worst thing that happens if you wait and prices run? You’ve lost ground you can’t get back.”
For agents who want more ready-to-use tools for conversations like this one, BAMx has everything you need to improve your conversations with clients and close more deals, including the Script Advisor, which is built on the weekly live roleplay masterminds with Byron Lazine, Lisa Chinatti, and Tom Toole, and updated every week.
Get the scripts, practice live with the best, and get real-time feedback.
Sign up today to get full access.
