{"id":4399,"date":"2024-01-26T18:44:56","date_gmt":"2024-01-26T18:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/26\/the-housing-market-has-just-shown-a-sudden-miraculous-return-to-normal-take-a-look\/"},"modified":"2024-01-26T18:44:56","modified_gmt":"2024-01-26T18:44:56","slug":"the-housing-market-has-just-shown-a-sudden-miraculous-return-to-normal-take-a-look","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/26\/the-housing-market-has-just-shown-a-sudden-miraculous-return-to-normal-take-a-look\/","title":{"rendered":"The Housing Market Has Just Shown a Sudden, Miraculous \u2018Return to Normal\u2019\u2014Take a Look"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Photo-illustration by Realtor.com. Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n

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What does the housing market need after years of being first overheated during the COVID-19 housing boom and then effectively frozen by the high mortgage rates that followed? A run at plain old room temperature.<\/p>\n

The market appeared to be heading in that more typical direction in the week ending Jan. 20.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis past week, the housing market showed the early signs of a return to normal, with slowing median listing price growth, a growing inventory of homes for sale, and mortgage rates which have fallen more than a percentage point from their recent peak,\u201d says\u00a0Realtor.com\u00ae<\/a> economic data manager Sabrina Speianu<\/strong> in her most recent\u00a0analysis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mortgage rates for a 30-year fixed-rate home loan ticked up to an average of 6.69% for the week ending Jan. 25, according to the latest Freddie Mac data<\/a>. Yet that figure \u201chas remained within a very narrow range over the last month,\u201d says Freddie Mac Chief Economist Sam Khater<\/strong>. (Last week\u2019s rate averaged 6.60%.)<\/p>\n

With nearly two months of winter left, will buyers and sellers brave the cold to take advantage of a surprisingly temperate market?<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll explain what the latest housing market data means for anyone tempted to get off the sidelines and into the real estate game in the latest installment of \u201cHow\u2019s the Housing Market This Week?<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

Where mortgage rates might be headed<\/h2>\n

All market watchers will be tuned in to see what the Fed does at its next meeting at the end of this month. Why? Because the Fed\u2019s relentless raising of interest rates to tame ballooning inflation is what essentially triggered mortgage interest rates to double over the past two years.<\/p>\n

Now, the Fed is poised to cut rates this year as inflation falls closer to its 2% goal. This will likely put pressure on mortgage rates to fall<\/a>. However, those eagerly anticipated rate cuts aren\u2019t likely until the spring or summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking forward, recent employment and inflation data came in relatively strong, suggesting that the Fed will likely opt to hold the policy rate steady in their upcoming meeting,\u201d explains Speianu. \u201cContinued progress toward the 2% inflation rate target is expected, and this will eventually improve housing market conditions in 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n

Home prices finally budge<\/h2>\n

While the median home list price rose by 1.9% for the week ending Jan. 20 compared with the prior year, the growth in prices declined from the previous week. (The median listing hit $410,000<\/a> in December.)<\/p>\n

This is good news for buyers who have been grappling with the high price hikes over the past few years. While prices are still rising, they\u2019re doing so much more slowly than the double-digit price hikes experienced during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cListing price growth appears to be cooling after reaching a 35-week high during the week ending Jan. 6,\u201d says Speianu. \u201cIf this trend continues, homebuyers stand to benefit from a decline in mortgage rates and slower, moderate home price appreciation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ongoing inventory uptick<\/h2>\n

The new year has brought a welcome trove of new homes for sale, which were a rare sight during a considerable stretch of last year.<\/p>\n

New listings were up for the week ending Jan. 20 by 3.4% from one year ago. While this growth is less than last week\u2019s 7% growth rate, \u201cnewly listed homes continue to rise above last year\u2019s levels for the 13th week in a row,\u201d notes Speianu.<\/p>\n

Active listings (a measure of both old and new homes for sale) grew by 8.6% for the week ending Jan. 20 compared with the year prior. That marked an 11-week streak of annual growth.<\/p>\n

And in promising news for buyers, there\u2019s \u201cno sign yet of a slowdown as growth in inventory,\u201d says Speianu.<\/p>\n

The case for not waiting for the spring market<\/h2>\n

Some buyers and sellers might be tempted to hold out for the busy spring housing market to kick into gear before getting off the proverbial bench.<\/p>\n

Yet many home shoppers are already in the game\u2014and snapping up properties.<\/p>\n

The typical home flew off the listing pages four days faster in the week ending Jan. 20 than in the same period last year. (In December, homes spent an average of 61 days on the market.)<\/p>\n

Chalk the faster pace of sales up to the influx of fresh listings and lower mortgage rates in a market filled with hungry buyers ready to pounce once they find homes they can afford.<\/p>\n

Buyers ready to make the move and sellers who need another home to move to might want to act fast before prices\u2014and the competition\u2014rise even more.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year, the first few weeks of January are shaping up to look more like slower seasonal growth seen in the years 2017 to 2020, where listing prices begin to pick up later in February,\u201d says Speianu.<\/p>\n

The post The Housing Market Has Just Shown a Sudden, Miraculous \u2018Return to Normal\u2019\u2014Take a Look<\/a> appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com\u00ae<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo-illustration by Realtor.com. Source: Getty Images What does the housing market need after years of being first overheated during the COVID-19 housing boom and then effectively frozen by the high mortgage rates that followed? A run at plain old room temperature. The market appeared to be heading in that more typical direction in the week…Read More→<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4400,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}