What’s up? What’s Down? What that means to you?
What’s Up? (Year over Year)
- First, let’s state the obvious; RATES are STILL UP.
- Listings are up – 14%.
- Median sales price – $432K
- Months of Inventory – 3.5 months
What’s Down? (Year over Year)
- Days on Market – 62 days
- Closed sales – 14.2%.
What that means to you?
It means, the housing market is in a stagnant period, and no one really knows what will happen. Rates are high, affordability is low, and inventory is increasing, slowly. But riddle me this…
What if inflation keeps rising and , the as a result, the Feds raise rates vs. lowing rates? Whether it is rates, prices, affordability, or inventory; one of these will need a shift to fully re-engage the housing market. Will prices drop? Will seller’s pull their homes from the market?
“The worst-case scenario is that inflation keeps defying expectations, and the Fed instead raises rates by a full percentage point, bringing the federal funds short-term borrowing rate to 6.5 percent by mid-2025.
Just the chance of a Fed rate hike can have a meaningful impact on lenders and stock market investors, regardless of whether it actually happens, Michael Contopoulos, director of fixed income at Richard Bernstein Advisors, told Yahoo Finance.”
Dip in ’30-10 spread’ a silver lining
Source: Optimal Blue and Federal Reserve data retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
And, with all that being said.….. People will always need to buy and sell real estate. Let me introduce you to the newly update FIVE D’S of Real Estate.
Death / Divorce / Destination / Duplication and lastly…. DEBT!
Let’s talk Debt:
As of February 2024, the total U.S. consumer debt was $17.37 trillion, which is up 2.8% from February 2023. This is a new high for the U.S.. The largest increase in any category is credit card debt, which increased by 16.6% between Q3 2022 and Q3 2023. Other categories with significant increases include:
- Home equity revolving credit, which increased by 8.4% between Q3 2022 and Q3 2023
- Auto loan and mortgage debt, which increased by 4%
- Student loan debt, which increased by 1.6%
- Household debt in the “Other” category, which includes retail cards and other consumer loans, which increased by 7.7%
Consider this, most households have $10k + in credit card debt, at an interest rate of 15% or more. If they can refinance their debt into one loan, one smaller overall payment, at a rate of 8%, their household debt become manageable.
Lenders, this was your tip. Refinances are still alive, just less.
NOW – ATTENTION AGENTS:
According to NAR, based on the pace of sales right now, just under 4 million homes will sell this year. With some simple math, let’s break down what that really means for you:
- 3.96 million homes divided by 365 days in a year = 10,849 houses sell each day
- 10,849 divided by 24 hours in a day = 452 houses sell per hour
- 452 divided by 60 minutes in an hour = about 8 houses sell each minute
So, on average, over 10,000 homes sell each day in this country. If you are an industry professional in today’s market, brand and top of mind awareness has never been more important.
- Engage your clients.
- Predict their behavior – the FIVE D’s
- Prospect for NEW clients.
- Partner with Ticor Title to help your focus for the ABOVE!
People are still buying and selling real estate…make sure you know when they are ready, they think of you.
Death / Divorce / Destination / Duplication and lastly…. DEBT!
