On Tuesday, Realtor.com issued a revised forecast projecting a more robust market than originally predicted through the remainder of the year.
As mortgage rates fall and more homes hit the market, realtor.com has updated its homebuying forecast for the end of 2019. While the original forecast predicted mortgage rates to reach 5.5 percent by the end of the year, the adjusted forecast indicates rates will likely peak at 4.5 percent. The number of home sales, meanwhile, will experience a much smaller drop than initially forecasted. Realtor.com expects them to drop by only 0.3 percent instead of 2 percent.
“The 2019 housing market is different than what we predicted in fall 2018, primarily due to an unexpected drop in mortgage rates in January
Have we arrived at one of those rare Goldilocks moments in real estate, where the market works well for sellers and buyers, strongly favoring neither?
Maybe. Based on the latest national consumer-sentiment survey by mortgage investor Fannie Mae, American consumers appear to think so. They’re more positive about the overall direction of the housing market than they’ve been in nearly a year. Growing numbers think it’s a good time to sell and a good time to buy. They expect their own personal financial situations will improve this year, and they believe that interest rates for home loans will continue to remain relatively affordable.
Housing and mortgage economists tend to agree. As Michael Fratantoni, chief economist of the Mortgage Bankers
A month out from "peak real estate season" in Seattle, and the local market is still not among the hottest in the country.
That is, likely, more than alright for a number of home-buyers, who might've been burnt out from last year's market which seemed to go nowhere but up in median price. But it's also a bit surprising -- and not confined to Seattle, according to a new monthly report from CoreLogic.
According to CoreLogic's numbers, Washington's growth in February 2019 for single-family home prices year-over-year was just 4.6%, only marginally more than the national average, 4%. Both those numbers represent something of a cooldown, according to Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic.
The housing market is getting better for buyers across the country, but Seattle’s shifting market continues to stand out compared to other regions.
Since the local market peaked last spring, single-family home prices have fallen twice as fast in the Seattle metro area as in any other region in the country, according to the monthly Case-Shiller home-price index, released Tuesday.
The total drop for the full metro area in that seven-month span, from June to January, totals 6 percent. The typical U.S. city actually saw a slight uptick in home values over that period, but prices dropped about 3 percent in the San Francisco and San Diego regions, and about 1 percent each in Portland and Chicago.
