HERE ARE NINE HOUSING AND MORTGAGE TRENDS TO WATCH FOR IN 2019:
Wanted: More homes for sale. Real estate has been a seller’s market for more than six years, meaning that there are more would-be buyers than homes for sale, sliding the balance of negotiating power in sellers direction. It will remain a seller’s market in 2019.
A prolonged seller’s market is not the ideal situation for home buyers. But the forecast contains some hope: The number of homes for sale is expected to rise. The problem is that the pent-up demand is still expected to continue to exceed supply, even with more homes for sale. Home prices will keep going up Home prices are expected to deliver a good news, bad news year in 2019.
“Home price appreciation will slow down and the days of easy price gains are coming to an end, but prices will continue to rise,” says Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors. NAR predicts that existing home prices will rise 2.5% in 2019, to a median of $265,200, compared with a 4.7% rise in 2018, to $258,700. CoreLogic and Realtor.com also predict a slowdown in sale prices of existing homes in 2019. Mortgage rates will continue rising.
From the beginning of 2018 to mid-December, 30-year fixed mortgage rates went up a little less than three-quarters of a percentage point, to around 4.75%. Forecasters expect mortgage rates to rise again in 2019, but at a slower pace.
Freddie Mac expects the 30-year fixed mortgage rate to rise half a percentage point in 2019, and the National Association of Realtors predicts a rise of 0.4 percentage point. Fannie Mae’s forecast is for an increase of just 0.1 percentage point. As home prices and mortgage rates rise in tandem, home buyers find it harder to afford homes. #housingmarket #houses #homesforsale #mortgage #mortgagerates#interestrates #realestate #broker #lender #wednesday #housingnews#property #NAR #FreddieMac
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