After a push-and-pull housing market between buyers and sellers over the last two years, experts say 2023 may be the year of a real estate standoff. Elevated borrowing costs and still-high home prices are discouraging buyers from purchasing and sellers from listing. New listings were down 20% year-over-year in March and were down almost 27% compared with March 2019, and according to The New York Times, the homes listed were usually overpriced or in need of renovation.
Still, home showings are up 20% since the start of the year, and mortgage applications were up 19% for the week ending March 24 compared with the previous four weeks, suggesting a slight boost in demand, likely due to seasonality.
That house you buy today will cost you 84 percent more a month to own than it would have if you bought it in March 2019, when the median price was $255,875, interest rates were 4.06 percent, and your monthly payments would have been a humble $984.
A buyer’s only reprieve, it would seem, is a drop in interest rates. But how likely is that? Bob Walters, the chief executive of Rocket Mortgage, predicts that mortgage rates will remain stable, or maybe slip a little in the months ahead, barring “an unwelcome inflation report.”
Advertisement
Related Stories
Market Data + Trends
Vacation and Investment Home Market Insights
A recent report finds beach homes to be the most sought-after vacation-home type and that the investment potential of a second home is an important factor in the purchasing decision
Affordability
How Much Income Do First-Time Buyers Need to Afford the Average Home?
The median-priced home is unaffordable in 44 of the 50 largest U.S. metro areas
Affordability
What Is the Relationship Between Urban vs. Suburban Development and Affordability?
A new paper from Harvard's Joint Center looks at whether expanding the supply of suburban housing could, in turn, help make dense urban areas more affordable
