National Association of Realtors (NAR) says in a report that we are in an unusual housing market. Existing home sales have fallen recently, but buyers are still anxious to purchase a home. Mortgage rates and sales prices are higher, and currently experiencing low inventory of existing homes for sale. This leads to an affordability issue with many home buyers. Number of homes for sale are rising, but homes sales are slowing down recently. With higher home prices and mortgage rates, number of sales may continue to decline. Recently, NAR published indicators in their housing report:
Home prices – Home prices are rising in every region of the U.S.
Days on Market – Large percentages of homes on market in April (2022) sold in less
than one month.
First-time buyers – These buyers comprised 28% of sales in April (2022). This was
down from year ago 31%.
Second-home buyers and Investors – These buyers make-up 17% of home buyers for April 2022. These buyers accounted for the bulk of the cash sales.
Distressed sales – These sales remain low for foreclosures and short sales.
Housing inventory – Housing inventory April is up over March 2022, but down from a year ago. Housing inventory has started to improve, but a sluggish pace. Nation has a long way to go to reverse prior years of under building. There has been encouragement by both NAR and the U.S. President to create incentives to improve the situation.
Per NAR across the country existing home sales fared in April (2022):
Northeast – Existing homes sales increased 1.5% over March (2022) which is 10.7% drop from prior year. Medium price is $412,000 a rise of 8.1% from prior year.
Midwest - March existing home sales rose 3.1% over February while median price is $282,000 which is up 8.7% from prior year.
South – April existing home sales dropped by 4.6% from prior month. The median price was at $352,100 which is 22.2% from prior year. This region is the only region to report double-digit price gains year-after-year.
West – Existing-housing sales fell by 5.8% in April resulting in 8.1% downturn from prior year. The median home price is $523,000, up 4.3% from prior April 2021.
Comments(1)