Tag Archives: Danielle Hale

The Federal Reserve once again raised the interest rates at its Federal Open Market Committee meeting Wednesday, reaching levels last seen in 2001.

Realtor.com has updated their forecast for the year, now saying mortgage rates could drop to 6% by the year’s end, but inventory woes are not likely to improve and could drop to numbers last seen in 2012.

NAR reports that existing-home sales recorded a slight gain of 0.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.3 million units.

The NAR says the market needs an additional 320,000 new home listings valued at no more than $256,000 so that borrowers earning below $75,000 can get into the market.

As reported by Realtor.com, home prices rose by 0.9% in May 2023, landing below numbers during pandemic and going further back to 2016.

NAR’s latest report reveals pending home sales were down across the U.S. on a year-over-year basis. Click through to find out what else the report revealed.

Existing-home sales dropped 3.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.28 million units at a median price of $388,800.

The MBA reports that approximately 255,000 homeowners remained in forbearance plans through April, as mortgage servicers have provided forbearance options to nearly 7.8 million Americans since April 2020.

"A lack of new sellers and homes for sale continues to limit buyers' choices and home sales. Many home sellers are likely future buyers too, which may be why a majority of would-be sellers report feeling 'locked in' to their current home because of a low mortgage rate, especially younger homeowners," said Danielle Hale, Chief Economist for Realtor.com.

As expected, the Federal Reserve raised rates again at the end of their May meeting by a quarter point—this is now the tenth-straight increase.