Married couples ready to take another plunge

Eighty-six percent of married couples who rent plan to purchase their first home within the next five years and 62 percent of them say they will buy within the next three years.

by Broderick Perkins
© 2011 DeadlineNews.Com

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Deadline Newsroom - This time they aren't putting the moves on each other.

Eighty-six percent of married couples who rent plan to purchase their first home within the next five years and 62 percent of them say they will buy within the next three years.

From TheNest.com, the study is good news for a housing market desperately looking to hook up with buyers.

Macroeconomist Brendan Lowney recently told DSNews.com it will take 6.5 million new households to absorb the excess inventory of homes.

Lowney estimates there is an excess inventory of about 2.5 million homes, nearly the same number Lender Processing Services reports are in the process of foreclosure. Another 3.9 homeowners are delinquent, Lender Processing reports.

But love is blind.

A whopping 98 percent said they weren't waiting for the economy to recover, but are instead saving for a down payment (36 percent) and waiting to buy when they know where their family will settle for the long term (32 percent).

TheNest.com, a lifestyle site from TheKnot.com, surveyed more than 1,400 women on TheNest.com who bought or rented their current home with their partner. Forty-nine percent of the couples surveyed rent, 51 percent own.

Saving is a good reason for renters to wait. Too little down gets some buyers rejected these days and a larger down payment makes for smaller monthly payments and some equity to nest away.

Ask owners. Eighty-three percent of them said staying on budget was a key factor in the buy. Among 28 percent of couples who argued during their home search, one in three argued primarily about their budget and finances.

Not surprisingly, the two had to come together and compromise to seal the deal. More than half (58 percent) of owning couples compromised on the place they ended up choosing. For some couples (42 percent), they were small compromises, and all their major wants and needs were met. For others (14 percent) it was large compromises, such as choosing a "starter home" and waiting for the next move to get a real dream home.

Costs often forced the compromising. Among homeowners the most surprising factor in the home-buying ordeal was the bottom line -- 37 percent said they were surprised by the actual cost when they tallied all the fees and costs.

Home buying stress was the most surprising factor for about 25 percent of the couples.

Like marriage (they hope), couples are in it for the long haul. While one in three couples no longer consider owning a home a slice of the "American Dream" pie, 92 percent of them are sold on the home as a solid investment.

Time, over the long haul, will tell.

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Broderick Perkins, an award-winning consumer journalist, parlayed 30 years of old-school journalism into a digital real estate news service, the San Jose, CA-based DeadlineNews Group, including DeadlineNews.Com, a real estate news and consulting service and Web site, and the Deadline Newsroom, DeadlineNews.Com's news back shop.

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Perkins was the first Examiner to cover three beats for the Examiner.com news service:
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