by Calculated Risk August 13, 2024 8:48 AM
Today’s Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Part 1: Current state of the housing market, mid-August 2024 overview
Short excerpt:
Our two-part mid-August brief provides an overview of the current housing market situation.
I always focus on inventory first. Inventory is usually Telling a story!
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Below is a graph of new property listings from J on Realtor.com.2024 Monthly Housing Market Trends Report New listings in June increased 3.6% year over year. New listings are still well below pre-pandemic levels. From Realtor.com:
Sellers continued to put homes on the market in July, with new listings up 3.6% from last year but down significantly from June’s 6.3% increase. This marks the ninth month of increases in listings after 17 consecutive months of declines.
Be aware of the seasonality of new listings: December and January are the months with the least number of new listings seasonally, followed by February and November. New listings in 2024 are expected to increase year-over-year but still remain below normal levels.
There will always be people who have to sell their homes due to the so-called three D’s – death, divorce, and illness – and at certain times, people may have to sell their homes due to job loss or heavy debt (neither of which are big issues right now).
And some homeowners want to sell for a variety of reasons, including wanting to upsize (more kids), downsize, move for a new job, move to a better home or location (upgrade buyers), etc. It is the portion of the “wanting to sell” group that has been held in gold handcuffs for the last few years because with current mortgage rates around 3% and new mortgage rates around 6.5%, it will be financially difficult to move.
However, time is of the essence for this “want to sell” group, and some will eventually take the plunge, which is perhaps why we are seeing more new listings now.
There’s a lot more in the article.
