{"id":4535,"date":"2024-02-09T23:28:53","date_gmt":"2024-02-09T23:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/09\/the-housing-market-sees-the-biggest-jump-in-3-years\/"},"modified":"2024-02-09T23:28:53","modified_gmt":"2024-02-09T23:28:53","slug":"the-housing-market-sees-the-biggest-jump-in-3-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/09\/the-housing-market-sees-the-biggest-jump-in-3-years\/","title":{"rendered":"The Housing Market Sees the \u2018Biggest Jump\u2019 in 3 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

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David Paul Morris\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n

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For those who believe in what it means when a famous groundhog doesn\u2019t see his shadow<\/a>, spring might be coming early\u2014particularly for the housing market.<\/p>\n

The biggest indicator that the largely frozen market<\/a> is thawing is the massive spike of fresh listings that sellers added to the market, according to the latest data from Realtor.com\u00ae. New listings were up by a whopping 12.8% for the week ending Feb. 3 compared with the same time last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the biggest jump in nearly three years,\u201d says Realtor.com economist Jiayi Xu<\/strong>\u00a0in her most recent analysis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Overall housing inventory (of both new and old listings) shot up by 12.2% for the same period. All in all, this adds up to what Xu calls \u201cmore options for home shoppers.\u201d<\/p>\n

What does this inventory boon mean for the spring home shopping season? We\u2019ll break down the latest data from the Realtor.com economists\u2014and what the numbers mean for buyers and sellers\u2014in this newest installment of \u201cHow\u2019s the Housing Market This Week?<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

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Mortgage rates are \u2018stagnant\u2019<\/h2>\n

Buyers have long been keeping a close eye on mortgage rates\u2014and now sellers are, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cSellers are closely monitoring mortgage rates,\u201d says Xu, \u201cand adjusting their selling strategies accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last fall\u2019s rate in the high 7% range, the highest in 23 years, had many homeowners \u201clocked in\u201d to their low existing rates. If they wanted to sell their homes to buy new ones, they would have to give up their low rates and take out loans with much higher ones. This led many to stay put.<\/p>\n

Rates have fallen since then by about 1 percentage point. According to the latest Freddie Mac data, rates for a 30-year fixed-rate home loan averaged 6.64% for the week ending Feb. 8. (Last week\u2019s rate averaged 6.63%.)<\/p>\n

For the past two months, mortgage rates<\/a> have been stuck in the mid-6% range, refusing to make any significant swings up or down.<\/p>\n

\u201cMortgage rates remain stagnant,\u201d Sam Khater<\/strong>, Freddie Mac\u2019s chief economist, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

So then why have so many sellers decided to head to market? Perhaps it\u2019s because they now surmise that mortgage rates are going nowhere fast, and they are finally making their moves before rates possibly tick up again.<\/p>\n

The home price feedback loop<\/h2>\n

Like mortgage rates, median home prices have been trapped in a cycle for months now, rising and falling like small waves without making a big splash in either direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cHome prices have been in a rough holding pattern since May 2023 and have deviated from prior-year levels only by a range of -0.9% to +2.2%,\u201d says Xu.<\/p>\n

For the week ending Feb. 3, the median home list price was 0.9% higher compared with the same week last year. (The median home list price was $409,500<\/a> in January.)<\/p>\n

However, buyers looking for good news will find that median home prices aren\u2019t growing as quickly as usual.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough the nation\u2019s median home listing price typically rises after the first week of the year, we may not see the intensity of price growth that we\u2019ve seen in 2021 to 2023,\u201d says Xu.<\/p>\n

The number of homes for sale is up, but still low overall<\/h2>\n

While the boost in homes for sale is welcome news, the number of homes for sale is still 40% lower compared with the pre-COVID-19 years between 2017 and 2019.<\/p>\n

Plus, Xu warns that the push and pull between supply and demand could nudge home prices higher. If there are only a few homes for sale, sellers can charge more and buyers will often bid prices up to secure a home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf improvements on the supply side do not align with the increasing demand from buyers, there exists the potential for prices to keep rising, thereby contributing to the persistence of elevated home prices,\u201d Xu adds.<\/p>\n

The housing market\u2019s big picture<\/h2>\n

What housing market future all of these data points will add up to remains to be seen. For now, buyers are diving into the market and making offers, likely excited by the new listings.<\/p>\n

The days a typical home spent on the market for the week ending Feb. 3 was three fewer than the same week a year ago. (Homes spent an average of 69 days on the market in January.)<\/p>\n

They might be moving quickly because there are no guarantees that the wave of fresh listings will continue.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite last week\u2019s encouraging boost in listing activities, additional data points are required to confirm whether sellers are responding as promptly as anticipated and to assess the sustainability of this significant improvement,\u201d says Xu.<\/p>\n

The post The Housing Market Sees the \u2018Biggest Jump\u2019 in 3 Years<\/a> appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com\u00ae<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Paul Morris\/Bloomberg via Getty Images For those who believe in what it means when a famous groundhog doesn\u2019t see his shadow, spring might be coming early\u2014particularly for the housing market. The biggest indicator that the largely frozen market is thawing is the massive spike of fresh listings that sellers added to the market, according…Read More→<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4535","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\/4535","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=4535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/billingsrealtybrokers.paradiseinnovations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}