Spring Local Housing Market Update

Recently many of my clients have been asking on updates on the housing market, so here’s your local market update along with 3 year trends:

What are the mortgage rates and where are they going?

As of March 27th, the current annual percentage rate has dropped to 6.748%

*Nerdwallet

Everyone is anticipating multiple rate drops this year. A common analyst opinion in the beginning of 2024 was 3 potential drops (perhaps some up to 75 basis points), but we haven’t seen them yet. The Fed wanted to curb inflation before they drop rates, but recent reports say that may change and they may start chipping away at it. This would be good news for buyers and sellers.

What are home prices doing? Growing? Falling? Why?

After the pandemic, the local housing market hasn’t suffered downward prices, even with higher rates the low inventory has kept the floor high. Spring of 2022 was the height of the prices when rates were in the mid 3%’s and were climbing quickly. After the quick rate rise, demand started dropping in return. Once the rate sticker shock started wearing off we saw an increase in the next summer-time.

How much inventory is out there? Is there more or less than the last few years?

The answer is both. The real estate market is very cyclical, but we are currently in the march averages for the last few years. Both the counties should be climbing for the next few months. More inventory = more choices; but for a seller it just means you need top-notch marketing, home appearance, and a good agent.

Fairly similar to the graph above it, we see the cyclical season of new listings. Summertime always sees the most new listings since of the good weather, school is out (making moves easier), and people are out-and-about more. However we saw a big decrease in 2023 due to rates. If rates drop we should see a large increase in new listings this summer.

Conclusion

I’m very optimistic for the rest of this year. Rates are down over 1% from their highs and the Fed plans on lowering them in the future. Mix in spring and summer to heat things up, and we’ll see much more activity. Our counties also have high demand from out-of-towners, which helps our local market. We live in a beautiful area and the demand will never stop from that.

If you’re on the buying side – feel free to reach out and I can tell you more about this wonderful area and/or we can start looking at homes, even if the timing is not right and you’re just curious.

If you’re on the selling side – whether it’s sooner or later, now is the time to start improving your home. New paint, fixes, remodel, new fence, etc. Contact me if you need any advice, contractor connections, or for me to take a quick tour and give you my professional thoughts on what to do (or not to do).

If you’re not going anywhere – never hesitate to reach out about home maintenance tips, a free valuation, or to answer any more questions you have about the housing market.