Although the percentage of offers submitted by buyers represented by Redfin agents that faced competing bids increased by a point between September and August, let’s still call the fall season a buyers market.
Just 11% of September offers were in a bidding war compared with 10% during August. The number of bids facing competing offers was down 41% from a year earlier.
“After the coolest spring home-selling season in at least eight years, homebuying competition didn’t have far to fall, but low mortgage rates ultimately drove a modest uptick in bidding wars in late summer when they typically become less common,” said Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather. “With mortgage rates likely to remain near historic lows, I expect the bidding war rate to continue to level off—rather than follow its typical end-of-year descent—as 2019 comes to a close.”
What will really be telling is whether or not the market begins to heat up this coming spring, now that we’re starting from a cooler baseline than 2017 or 2018 as 2019 winds down.
To see a chart about the rate of bidding wars by cities …
Advertisement
Related Stories
New-Home Sales
Mortgage Rates Are Up but New-Home Sales Still Solid in March
Lack of existing home inventory drove a rise in new-home sales, despite higher interest rates in March
Labor + Trade Relations
Who's Earning What in Construction
Workers in construction management roles may earn a higher median wage, but on average, lower-paid occupations have experienced somewhat faster wage growth
Build to Rent
Build-to-Rent Is Booming, Particularly in These Metros
A recent report finds that the Phoenix metro leads with more than 4,000 build-to-rent units completed in 2023, and Texas is the leading state for build-to-rent development