Will the Housing Market Frenzy Die Down? That Depends on Sellers

The coronavirus pandemic raised the temperature considerably on the nation’s housing market. The past year has been marked by soaring prices, logic-defying offers over asking price, and steep competition as sellers have been hesitant to put their homes up for sale.

But the heart-pumping, bank account–depleting housing market frenzy could die down—at least a little—in the coming months as more sellers list their properties and inventory slowly increases. About 10% of current homeowners plan to put their homes on the market this year—and more than half are more affordably priced, according to an exclusive survey conducted by realtor.com®. An additional 16% expect to list their properties within the next two to three years.

Typically, only about 8% of homeowners put their homes up for sale a year. This is about a 25% anticipated increase, which translates into about 1.5 million more homes. The increase may be due to folks holding off on selling their homes during the worst of the coronavirus pandemic.

“There is a brighter light at the end of the tunnel for many weary buyers,” says Realtor.com Senior Economist George Ratiu.“In a market that right now only has close to half a million listings, a big boost in inventory can mean more choices for buyers and potentially a slowdown in price growth,” says Ratiu. He was quick to add that prices won’t drop, but the double-digit growth may taper off. “It’s signaling a return to normal for the economy and the housing market.”

Read the full article: Housing Market frenzy could cool for this reason (more…)

Open Houses Sunday April 25

As usual, more Open Houses are scheduled for today than were in yesterday’s list:

Open Houses

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Open Houses weekend April 24/25

Here are the weekend’s Open Houses. Be aware that with such low inventory, many new listings receive offers before the weekend Open Houses.
This list will be updated on Sunday morning (because of the quirks of MLS many of the Sunday Open Houses don’t show up on Saturday.)

Open Houses
Click on these links for details: (more…)

New Listings week ending April 23

The number of New Listings is still small:

New Listings

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The US is 3.8 Million Homes Short

The U.S. housing market needs nearly 4 million single-family homes to meet the nation’s demand, according to a new analysis from Freddie Mac. The 3.8 million shortfall marks a 52% increase in the housing shortage since 2018.

“This is what you get when you underbuild for 10 years,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “We should have almost four million more housing units if we had kept up with demand the last few years.”

Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of REALTORS®, has been among real estate economists leading the calls over the last few years for greater inventory and more homebuilding to meet demand. “We need to build more homes,” Yun told NPR, adding that since the housing crisis more than a decade ago, homebuilders have been building too few homes.

The housing shortage mixed with strong buyer demand since the pandemic is prompting home prices to rise rapidly. The median existing-home price for all housing types in February was $313,000, up 15.8% compared to a year earlier, according to the National Association of REALTORS®.

Click here to read the article. (more…)

Open Houses Sunday April 18

More Open Houses are scheduled for today than were in yesterday’s list:

Open Houses

Click on these links for details: (more…)

Marblehead Housing Market Q1 2021 Review

The median price of Single Family Homes (SFH) sold in Q1 2021 increased 10.5% to $765,000, well below the $839,900 in the second half of 2020. But Q1 can often be an anomaly because of the small number of sales.
SFH sales were 32 compared with 31 in 2020.
There were just 10 Condo sales in Q1 2021, compared with 9 in Q1 2020. Condo sales occurred between $260,000 and $599,000. 6 of the 2021 sales occurred below list price, 2 at list and 2 above list price.

Marblehead Housing Market

For a more detailed report on the market in Q1 go to Team Harborside’s website and read: Marblehead Q1 Market Review (more…)