The Fed Has Successfully Kickstarted a Full-Blown Housing Correction, but What Happens From Here?
In order to tame a mid-pandemic housing boom, the Federal Reserve put upward pressure on mortgage rates for the first several months of 2022, but as a correction takes hold, supply and demand seem to finally be balancing out. Mortgage applications are down 17% year-over-year, while new home sales and existing home sales are falling sharply, according to Fortune.
While some popular markets across the Southwest, Mountain West, and West Coast are seeing much-needed deceleration, others are still seeing historically high gains. As mortgage rates continue to rise and housing supply increases, more signs of normalcy are popping up in a recovering post-pandemic market.
Already, spiking mortgage rates have pushed the U.S. housing market into cool-down mode. As April and May housing data trickled in, it became clear the Pandemic Housing Boom was fizzling out. In June and July, the pace of the cooling picked up.
To find evidence of the accelerated rate of cooling, just look at inventory data. Among the nation's 100 largest housing markets, the median market saw inventory rise 1% between January and April, according to Fortune's analysis of realtor.com data. That was before spiking mortgage rates kicked off the housing correction. Among those same 100 largest housing markets, the median market saw inventory rise 50% between April and June.