The other component is that sellers are locked in. Many sellers are also buyers, moving from one home to the next, and will be comparing available mortgage rates unfavorably with what they’re paying now, and available prices unfavorably with what they paid five years ago. They may choose to postpone a move for as long as they can.About two in three outstanding mortgages have an interest rate below 4 percent; one in four are below three.
This stand-off has been described as a kind of paralysis. Can it last forever? Maybe housing prices will take a significant hit until more buyers can afford them, as homeowners putting off a move find life’s demands—new job, new kid, and so on—become impossible to wait out. Prices have alreadya thirdAdvertisement
But maybe they won’t! Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin, says: “It’s noteworthy how slowly prices have declined. They’re still above last year’s levels. I don’t anticipate any major decline in home prices, unless we enter a recession and interest rates stay elevated.” Some buyers may abandon their search entirely, and throw fuel on the fire currently burning in the rental market, but many will confront sellers’ lack of flexibility by just moving down the price ladder.
The thing current homeowners have going for them, besides a roof over their heads, low-interest debt, and an asset that has appreciated enormously in the past decade, is that there are structural reasons for the cost of housing to stay high: We haven’t built enough of it to keep up with population growth and family formation as the enormous millennial generation tries to put down roots.
Homeowners & Flood insurance does the blinking around here bro
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