What Will Come for Housing in 2021, According to the Experts

Housing economists, association heads, and investors all weighed in on what the housing market will look like in 2021 and many are expecting the housing craze to continue. Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale told Forbes that sales could increase by 7% and home prices could jump even higher than this year’s. There may be some relief with a slower pace of home price increases and more sellers getting comfortable listing their homes. Single-family home construction could advance by 9% next year as well. Read more to see what other real estate experts predict for 2021.

Robert Dietz, senior vice president and chief economist, National Association of Home Builders: With home builder confidence near record highs, we expect continued gains for single-family construction, albeit at a lower growth rate than in 2019. Some slowing of new home sales growth will occur due to the fact that a growing share of sales has come from homes that have not started construction. Nonetheless, buyer traffic will remain strong given favorable demographics, a shifting geography of housing demand to lower-density markets and historically low interest rates.

But supply-side headwinds will persist. Residential construction continues to face limiting factors, including higher costs and longer delivery times for building materials, an ongoing labor skills shortage, and concerns over regulatory cost burdens. For apartment construction, we will see some weakness for multifamily rental development particularly in high-density markets, while remodeling demand should remain strong and expand further.

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