There's nothing like a year of drastic mortgage interest rate hikes on top of breathtaking price increases to bring back bad memories of the 2008 real estate market crash, and its subsequent fallout, which lasted half a decade or more for many in the U.S.

2022:

Year-over-year CPI peaked at 9.1% in June, and monthly readings since have steadily declined. After bottoming out at 2.65% in January of 2021, mortgage rates peaked in October 2022 at just over 7% and since have adjusted down, currently averaging in the high 5% to mid-6% range. 

It was the sudden, dramatic increases made by Fed Chair Powell that have most concerned U.S. consumers, 41% of whom say they now fear a housing crash in the next year, per a new LendingTree survey. Unrealistic, or something we should all be worried about?

“It’s a valid question,” Lawrence Yun, NAR (National Association of REALTORS®) chief economist acknowledged at the org’s Real Estate Forecast Summit in mid-December 2022: “People are remembering the crushing and painful foreclosure crisis. So, it has become a key question: Will home prices crash after the strong run-up in prices across the country over recent years?”

Okay, so will they?

See Yun's predictions and the latest DC market data on our new post "This Ain't That" at realestateinthedistrict.com