It’s been six years since home prices fell on an annual basis, maybe even longer. Since Realtor.com began keeping records in 2017, its index of home prices hasn’t fallen on an annual basis until now. Liz Lucking reports in Mansion Global:
In good news for U.S. home buyers, many of whom are exhausted by the ever-growing cost of owning, median home prices have slipped for the first time in years, according to a report Thursday from Realtor.com.
Listing prices fell 0.9% annually in June, the first yearly decline since at least 2017, which is when the online property portal began tracking the metric.
It’s another sign sellers are coming to terms with a changing market amid higher mortgage rates. In June, the typical U.S. home sold for roughly $383,000, about $4,000 less than the all-time high set last June, according to a separate report Thursday from Redfin.
“Price gains have been weakening since last summer as rising mortgage rates have added to ongoing affordability challenges and further cooled buyer demand, so the first year-over-year decline in median list prices this month wasn’t unexpected,” Danielle Hale, chief economist for Realtor.com, said in its report.
“While this could feel like a welcome relief for buyers, our revised 2023 outlook expects only a modest drop in home prices of 0.6% for the year. This may not be enough to noticeably bring down costs until the end of the year as inflation and rates start to fall too,” she added.
Still, shoppers are benefitting from more homes to choose from this month, with inventory across the country up 7.1% compared to the same time last year, Realtor.com said.
The number of new listings fresh to the market plummeted more than 25% in the same time though, demonstrating how hesitant sellers are to give up their more favorable mortgage rates or to face asking prices that, in many areas, remain overheated even two years after the peak of the pandemic housing boom.
Read more here.
