Continued Rate Hikes Causing Housing Market Uncertainty

HouseCanary has released its latest Market Pulse Report for April 2023, which covers over 20 listing-derived metrics and compares and compares them year-over-year. The Market Pulse is an ongoing review of proprietary data and insights from HouseCanary’s nationwide platform. 

According to HouseCanary, during the first month of the second quarter of 2023, the housing market began to react to the Federal Reserve’s 0.25% nominal interest rate hike, which resulted in reduced market activity. Though the most recent rate hikes have only been a quarter percent, the housing market still exhibited year-over-year decreases in contract and net new listings volume. Further, net new listing volume remains below contract volume, giving no quarter to the inventory shortage. 

Meanwhile, listed and closed prices have rapidly reversed course from declining throughout the second-half of 2022 and into early 2023 with prices now increasing rapidly month-over-month since the end of February 2023. 

Jeremy Sicklick, Co-Founder and CEO of HouseCanary, commented: 

"As we enter May 2023, the real estate market continues to experience uncertainty, with the purchasing market slowdown being one of the key trends observed for over a year now, as April 2023 marked the 12th consecutive month of year-over-year declines in net new listings and contract volume. This trend has led to an increase in rental demand, as prospective buyers remain cautious amid the market conditions. However, buyers and sellers alike are looking towards the upcoming Federal Reserve meeting with hope, as some experts anticipate the reversal of rate hikes, which could potentially lead to a resurgence in activity.”

Key Takeaways as highlighted by HouseCanary include: 

• For the month of April 2023, 222,076 net new listings were placed on the market, and 283,034 properties went under contract. This represents a decrease of 39.8% and 17.8%, respectively, versus April 2022. 
• The decrease in net new listings was driven by a 32.4% decrease in new listing volume as well as a 44.8% increase in removals compared to April 2022. 
• Median days on market stood at 33, up 37.5% from the prior year at 24 days on market. Days on the market decreased by 10.8% on a month-over-month basis. 
• The sale-to-list-price ratio stands at 98.9%, which is above the lowest value observed in January 2023 and trending further upward. 
• Price cuts are up 82.8% year-over-year but are down nearly 55.5% from their recent peaks occurring in September and October 2022. 
• Total single-family rental inventory is up 64.6% from the same period in 2022, and up 128.7% from 2021.
• For the week ending April 21st, 2023, the median price of all single-family listings in the US was $434,857 and the median closed price was $401,664. On a year-over-year basis, the median price of all single-family listings is up 1.2% and the median price of closed listings is down 4.8%. Month-over-month, the median price of single-family listings is up 1.8% and the median price of closed listings is up 3.4%
• For the week ending April 21st, 2023, the median price of all single-family rental listings in the US was $2,572. On a year-over-year basis, the median price of all single-family rental listings is up 5.3%. Month-over-month, the median price of single-family rental listings is up 2.3%.

Click here to view the full report, including state-level data.