Tag Archives: Home Prices

Realtor.com released its February Monthly Housing Trend Report, which showed an increase in listing prices as well as an increase of housing inventory. The increase in both list price as well as inventory points to a "strong early beginning to this spring's home buying season," the report said.

"The combination of steep price appreciation and rising mortgage rates is likely coming as a shock to many prospective buyers," Redfin stated in its latest Real-Time Price Tracker. Home sales declined 10.3 percent across the country year-over-year in February, falling for the fourth straight month with sharp drops in West Coast markets.

Single-family homes sales in Connecticut rose 2.0 percent in January, according to a new report from The Warren Group. The month-to-month gain in January marks the ninth consecutive month of home sale increases for the state.

Asked about home price trends over the next year, 50 percent of respondents in Fannie Mae’s February National Housing Survey said they expect improvements, a recovery from a slide to 43 percent in January. A slightly larger number of consumers anticipate price declines—7 percent, up from 6 percent—while the share of those forecasting no significant movement was down to 38 percent.

The California Association of Realtors (CAR) released a new report, revealing sales of distressed homes have plummeted in the past five years. In January, 2009, 69.5 percent of all homes sold in California were distressed, which included short sales and real estate-owned properties (REO). The report issued Monday noted that five years later, distressed home sales made up only 15.6 percent of sold homes.

While many price indicators have pointed to slowdowns over the last few months, the latest trend could be the start of something worse, says Dr. Alex Villacorta, VP of research and analytics at Clear Capital. The company’s Home Data Index (HDI) Market Report, recorded only a 1 percent gain in home prices over the quarter ending last month.

Low inventory and rising prices are thwarting demand in the housing market as overall home competition is down from last January. Numbers showing competition between buyers in January, 2014, are up, but yearly overall competition for 2014 is expected to dwindle as rising prices prevent many home shoppers from feeling that they are “getting a deal,” according to Redfin.

With many older Americans feeling confident as their net worth rises with their home values, younger Americans who do not yet own a home find themselves in a very different situation, according to BBVA. "[Y]oung families will need to see faster income growth and save additional money to make a larger down payment," said economist Jason Frederick.

San Francisco remains one of the most expensive housing markets in the United States, according to data released by the San Francisco Association of REALTORS (SFAR) on Tuesday. San Francisco is representative of a nationwide trend of home prices—too few single-family homes are driving up housing prices of available homes.

It appears more consumers have taken notice of reports of slowing home price gains. The share of consumers in Fannie Mae's January National Housing Survey who said they expect home prices to increase in the next year fell 6 percentage points to 43 percent, while the share expecting prices to stay the same increased 7 percentage points to 45 percent. The average 12-month home price change expectation was 2.0 percent.