Hello! Welcome back to Flight School – Aerial View, where we take a quick look at the latest market updates.
Each week, we gather and summarize data from the leading analysts and economists in the real estate industry to provide you with a snapshot of what’s happening with four important topics: mortgage rates, inventory, demand, and pricing. Below are some key insights for the week of November 27th, 2023.
Starting with mortgage rates, where this week the 30-year fixed has been around 7.3%. Yesterday, one of the biggest Fed “hawks” changed his tune and said the rate hike cycle is over. We’re starting to see more and more indicators like this one which inform us the Fed will likely skip the expected hike at December’s meeting and cuts should be in the works in 2024 as long as the inflation growth rate keeps falling.
Shifting to inventory, where this week we have 566,000 single family homes on the market. Almost 1% fewer than a week ago. Experts can now confidentiality say inventory has peaked for the year – you’ll recall the false alarm two weeks back. Half a percent more homes are on the market now compared to the same week last year. The feeling that’s starting to emerge is that sellers have adjusted to the current mortgage rate environment and that’s bringing everyone off the sidelines.
That leads us to our third topic, demand. We are starting to see slightly more immediate sales than the year prior – – that’s homes which go into contract immediately. Going forward the hope is that the number of sellers keep increasing, and that the percentage of immediate sales, scales with it. Whereas, if inventory were to flood the market and immediate sales were to drop off, that would be a sign prices will crash in 2024. So the trend we are all hoping for is increased sellers in winter and spring and that some of those homes continue to go into contract immediately.
And lastly, pricing, where the median price for a single family home in the US this week was $425,000, a few percent higher than this time last year. We can now officially say that while sales saw a huge drop in 2023, home prices found a soft landing. Leading indicators are not strong when it comes to price growth, but they are not deteriorating either, so the expectation is that prices will be relatively flat in 2024.
WRAP UP
That’s it for this week, be sure to check in next week for another market snapshot! And as always, reach out now to learn even more about how Flyhomes can help you on your home buying and selling journey.
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