The lack of available inventory in the housing market has overheated home prices, making the buying process longer for many home shoppers. Two-thirds of buyers are waiting three months before purchasing, according to National Association of Home Builders' survey data.
At the end of 2017, home prices grew in over 90 percent of U.S. housing markets, says the National Association of Realtors. Many industry experts are pushing for builders to increase their projects, yet, as Rose Quint, assistant vice president for survey research at the NAHB, points out to CNBC, "The prices of lumber and labor and land are increasing so fast, they're constrained at the bottom, at how low a price they can really achieve."
Back to prices, 27 percent said they kept getting outbid on their offers. Bidding wars are now the rule, not the exception, in most major U.S. markets. Home prices rose in 92 percent of the nation's measured housing markets at the end of last year, according to the National Association of Realtors. Twenty-six markets (15 percent) saw double-digit increases in prices. That was more than in the third quarter.
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