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Tag: home prices

  • Report: Homeownership rate dips in Minnesota, state no longer regional leader

    Last year, Minnesota’s homeownership rate saw its largest single drop in 40 years, a recent housing report shows. 

    That new rate is 71% after being as high as 75% just a few years ago. That makes the state no longer the regional leader for homeownership—Iowa has surpassed Minnesota for that top spot, according to the Roseville-based Housing Affordability Institute.   

    “It’s natural for home ownership rates to fluctuate, but the level of fluctuation we’ve seen in the last couple of years is really what is concerning,” said Nick Erickson, executive director of the institute.

    Affordability and availability are to blame. Minnesota is short of nearly 100,000 homes–two-thirds in the Twin Cities metro—and has the highest median home price for new and existing single-family homes in the upper Midwest region.

    There are fewer permits for new home builds despite that growing need for housing, the report found. Demand for homes that outpaces supply drives up costs and prices people out of the market, Erickson said.

    And not enough affordable rental units doesn’t help either as people try to save for down payments.

    “This is a problem that is now kind of feeding itself and without intervention, it’s just going to continue,” he told WCCO in an interview Wednesday. 

    The National Association of Realtors earlier this month said the typical age for a home buyer has climbed to 40 last year, an all-time high last year.

    Changing course, Erickson said, requires government intervention. 

    A bipartisan package of bills to address affordable housing at the state capitol this past legislative session didn’t clear the finish line, though lawmakers vow to renew their push in February when the Legislature returns once again. 

    “We’ve made more progress this year on this issue than last year,” Rep. Mike Howard, DFL-Richfield, one of the lead authors of the “Yes to Homes” package, said earlier this year. 

    Among the proposals put forward that didn’t ultimately pass is legislation designed to cut down red tape in order to build more starter homes. like townhomes and duplexes, and ensure those plans are approved by cities in a timely manner by streamlining that process.

    Other bills focused on lifting parking directives and removing aesthetic requirements — the mandated use of premium products as the minimum construction standard — that supporters say are barriers to development. 

    “The bipartisanship that surrounds it here in Minnesota mirrors what we’re seeing across the country at the state level, and it really is encouraging to see, but I think it also speaks to the depth of the challenge,” Erickson said. “This is a crisis that is affecting Minnesotans across the board as it is Americans.”

    Caroline Cummings

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  • More than half of U.S. homes have dropped in value over the last year — and nearly all houses in these cities have seen losses | Fortune

    The share of U.S. homes that have lost value in the past year is the highest since the aftermath of the Great Recession, according to Zillow.

    In October, 53% of homes saw their “Zestimates” decline, the most since 2012 and up from just 16% a year earlier. Losses were most widespread in the West and South.

    In fact, those regions have housing markets where nearly all homes declined in value over the last year. Denver topped the list with 91%, followed by Austin (89%), Sacramento (88%), Phoenix (87%) and Dallas (87%).

    The Northeast and Midwest, by contrast, have largely avoided such losses, but declines are spreading to more homes in all metros, Zillow said.

    In addition, most homes also dropped from their peak valuations, with the average drawdown hitting 9.7%. While that has soared from 3.5% in the spring of 2022, it’s still well below the 27% average drawdown in early 2012.

    To be sure, lower home values are just losses on paper and aren’t realized by homeowners unless actual sale prices undercut their initial purchase prices.

    By that score, homeowners are still ahead as Zillow data shows that values are up a median 67% since the last sale, and just 4.1% of homes have lost value since their last sale.

    “Homeowners may feel rattled when they see their Zestimate drop, and it’s more common in today’s cooler market environment than in recent years. But relatively few are selling at a loss,” Treh Manhertz, senior economic researcher at Zillow, said in a statement. “Home values surged over the past six years, and the vast majority of homeowners still have significant equity. What we’re seeing now is a normalization, not a crash.”

    Zillow

    The lower values come as the housing market has been frozen for much of the past three years after rate hikes from the Federal Reserve in 2022 and 2023 sent borrowing costs higher, discouraging homeowners from giving up their existing ultra-low mortgage rates.

    But the dearth of new supply kept home prices high, shutting out many would-be homebuyers who were also balking at elevated mortgage rates.

    With demand weak, the housing market has been shifting away from sellers and toward buyers. The pendulum has swung so far the other way that delistings soared this year as sellers become fed up with offers coming in below asking prices and just take their homes off the market.

    But the National Association of Realtors sees a turnaround coming next year. NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun predicted earlier this month existing-home sales will jump 14% in 2026 after three years of stagnation, with new-home sales rising 5%. Those sales will support a 4% uptick in home prices.

    “Next year is really the year that we will see a measurable increase in sales,” Yun said at a conference on Nov. 14. “Home prices nationwide are in no danger of declining.”

    Jason Ma

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  • Foreclosure filings on the rise, report finds

    As more U.S. homeowners struggle to keep up with mortgage payments and maintenance costs, new data shows the number of property foreclosures is steadily rising. CBS News contributor Javier David has more.

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  • Now is the worst time to flip a home. It hasn’t been this bad in nearly two decades | Fortune

    It pays less and less to buy and flip a home these days. From April through June, the typical home flipped by an investor resulted in a 25.1% return on investment, before expenses. That’s the lowest profit margin for such transactions since 2008, according to an analysis by Attom, a real estate data company.

    Gross profits — the difference between what an investor paid for a property and what it sold for — fell 13.6% in the second quarter from a year earlier to $65,300, the firm said. Attom’s analysis defines a flipped home as a property that sells within 12 months of the last time it sold.

    Home flippers buy a home, typically with cash, then pay for any repairs or upgrades needed to spruce up the property before putting it back on the market.

    The shrinking profitability for home flipping is largely due to home prices, which continue to climb nationally, albeit at a slower pace, driving up acquisition costs for investors.

    “We’re seeing very low profit margins from home flipping because of the historically high cost of homes,” said Rob Barber, Attom’s CEO. “The initial buy-in for properties that are ideal for flipping, often lower priced homes that may need some work, keeps going up.”

    The median price of a home flipped in the second quarter was bought by an investor for $259,700, a record high according to data going back to 2000, according to Attom.

    The median sales price of flipped homes was $325,000, unchanged from the first quarter, the firm said.

    A chronic shortage of homes on the market and heightened competition for lower-priced properties are also helping drive up investors’ acquisition costs.

    Home flipping profits have declined for more than a decade as home prices rose along with the housing market’s recovery from the housing crash in the late 2000s.

    Consider, in the fall of 2012, the typical flipped home netted a 62.9% return on investment before expenses, Attom said.

    Even as home flipping has become less profitable, such transactions remain widespread.

    Some 78,621 single-family homes and condos were flipped in the April-June quarter, accounting for 7.4% of all home sales during the quarter — a slight decline from both the first quarter and the second quarter of 2024, according to Attom.

    The U.S. housing market has been in a sales slump since early 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes sank last year to their lowest level in nearly 30 years. Sales have remained sluggish this year as mortgage rates, until recently, remained elevated.

    As home sales have slowed, properties are taking longer to sell. That’s led to a sharply higher inventory of homes on the market, benefiting investors and other home shoppers who can afford to bypass current mortgage rates by paying in cash or tapping home equity gains.

    With many aspiring homeowners priced out of the market, real estate investors — whether those looking to buy and rent or home flippers — are taking up a bigger share of U.S. home sales overall.

    Some 33% of all homes sold in the second quarter were bought by investors — the highest share in at least five years, according to a report by real estate data provider BatchData.

    Between 2020 and 2023, the share of homes bought by investors averaged 18.5%.

    All told, investors bought 345,752 homes in the April-June quarter, an increase of 15% from the first quarter, but a 12% decline from the same period last year, the firm said.

    Even so, investor-owned homes account for roughly 20% of the nation’s 86 million single-family homes, the firm said.

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    Alex Veiga, The Associated Press

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  • Monthly homeownership costs now top $2,000, new data shows

    If the challenge of scraping enough money to buy a home in the U.S. weren’t enough amid painfully high real estate prices, the cost of owning a home is also surging. 

    The inflation-adjusted median monthly cost of homeownership in 2024 rose to $2,035, up neary 4% from $1,960 in 2023, according to new Census Bureau data. That cost encompasses monthly mortgage and insurance payments, taxes, utilities and other fees. 

    The main factors behind the increase in homeownership costs: higher mortgage rates, fees and insurance costs.

    “Rising insurance premiums and [homeowners association]/condo fees are the behind-the-scenes culprits for this increase outside of the basic increases to mortgage rates and home prices we’ve seen since 2019,” Realtor.com senior economist Joel Berner said in a statement.

    The typical condo or HOA fee in 2024 was $135, Census found. The median annual cost for property insurance in 2024 was $1,348.

    “It’s not always clear to prospective homebuyers to budget for these costs since they sit on top of the basic principal and interest payments on a home, but these costs are rising and are a significant portion of what homeowners pay every month,” he added.

    Millions of homeowners also face rising electricity costs, driven largely by the growing power requirements of artificial intelligence, data centers, electrification and manufacturing.

    A recent LendingTree study found that residents in the 50 largest U.S. metro areas spend more than $450 a month on utilities, up 24% from 2019. Costs were highest in Boston, Massachusetts; New York, New York; Providence, Rhode Island; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the personal finance site found. 

    Highest homeownership costs

    Homeowners in the District of the Columbia faced the highest median monthly costs in 2024, at $3,181, according to the Census survey. Others U.S. states with high homeownership costs California, where residents paid over $3,000 a month for the typical home; Hawaii ($2,937); New Jersey ($2,797); and Massachusetts ($2,755). 

    Renters also face rising costs. In 2024, the median gross rent across the U.S. was $1,487, up 2.7% from $1,448 the previous year, the figures show. 

    Megan Cerullo

    Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News 24/7 to discuss her reporting.

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  • The housing market is no longer a wealth-building engine as home prices continue to slump

    High home prices and mortgage rates have created unaffordable conditions for many Americans, but the housing market’s ability to create more wealth has sputtered.

    That’s because even as home prices continue to hover around record levels, they are also edging lower and lagging behind the rate of inflation, which has heated up amid President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

    “For the first time in years, home prices are failing to keep pace with broader inflation,” said Nicholas Godec, head of Fixed Income Tradables & Commodities at S&P Dow Jones Indices, in a statement on Tuesday. The last time that happened was mid-2023.

    The latest S&P Cotality Case-Shiller home price data showed that the 20-city index fell 0.3% in June from the prior month, marking the fourth consecutive monthly decline.

    On an annual basis, the 20-city composite was up 2.1%, down from a 2.8% increase in the previous month, and the national index saw a 1.9% yearly gain, down from 2.3%. Meanwhile, the consumer price index rose 2.7% in June from a year ago.

    “This reversal is historically significant: During the pandemic surge, home values were climbing at double-digit annual rates that far exceeded inflation, building substantial real wealth for homeowners,” Godec added. “Now, American housing wealth has actually declined in inflation-adjusted terms over the past year—a notable erosion that reflects the market’s new equilibrium.”

    Weak prices suggest underlying housing demand remains muted, he said, despite the spring and summer historically being the peak period for homebuying.

    In fact, this year’s selling season has been a bust. While sales of existing homes have ticked up recently, they are still subdued and prices are flat. In addition, sales of new homes are slumping with prices down.

    Conditions have been so dire that Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi sounded the alarm on the housing market even louder last month.

    In Godec’s view, the recent shift in the housing market could represent a new normal—but one that also has a positive angle.

    “Looking ahead, this housing cycle’s maturation appears to be settling around inflation-parity growth rather than the wealth-building engine of recent years,” he said.

    That’s as pandemic-era hot spots in the Sun Belt have cooled off with demand increasingly tilting toward established industrial centers that enjoy sustainable fundamentals like employment growth, greater affordability, and favorable demographics.

    “While this represents a loss of the extraordinary gains homeowners enjoyed from 2020-2022, it may signal a healthier long-term trajectory where housing appreciation aligns more closely with broader economic fundamentals rather than speculative excess,” Godec added.

    Meanwhile, analysts at EY-Parthenon sounded gloomier about the housing market in a report that also came out on Tuesday, predicting that home prices will turn negative on an annual basis by year-end due to low demand and rising inventories.

    Home listings are up 25% from a year ago, and inventories have risen for 21 consecutive months. Homebuilders are also cautious given that demand is under pressure and construction costs are still elevated.

    “Looking forward, the housing market is expected to stay stagnant, as slowing income growth and persistently high borrowing costs continue to limit demand,” the EY report said. “While proposed changes to the regulatory environment can help improve builder sentiment, elevated construction costs due to higher tariffs along with ample inventories will continue to constrain construction activity.”

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    Jason Ma

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  • New home inventory is at its highest level since just before the housing market collapse that led to the Great Recession, but that doesn’t mean it’s the same market

    The U.S. housing market’s inventory is growing, putting pressure on prices and slowing new construction, according to fresh research from the Bank of America Institute. As of June, existing-home supply reached 4.7 months, the highest level since July 2016. New-home supply surged even further to 9.8 months—its highest point since 2022—highlighting how quickly inventory is building across the housing market.

    The influx of available homes reflects sluggish demand, with builders citing weak buyer urgency, affordability challenges, and lingering job instability. The Institute noted new-home inventory is now at its highest level since 2007, the year before the housing market collapse that led to the Great Financial Crisis.

    ResiClub co-founder Lance Lambert told Fortune that the rising inventory tells us that “homebuyers are gaining leverage” as slack in the housing market is increasing. “The Pandemic Housing Boom saw too much housing demand all at once, home prices overheated too fast in many markets, and underlying fundamentals got too stretched.”

    Lambert characterized the last few years as a “recalibration period” where the housing market is smoothing out that excess. Mounting inventory sucks out appreciation in more markets—and even causes outright corrections in some markets’ home prices. He said he expects the underlying fundamentals to slowly improve as that happens and incomes keep rising. “It takes time.” This period is different from 2007, he said, because that window saw a far greater weakening of the housing market and upswing in resale inventory, along with unsold, completed newbuild homes.

    BofA Research

    One striking shift: The median price of a new home has actually fallen below that of an existing home—a reversal of the usual market dynamic. BofA said this pricing inversion underscores how builders are being forced to discount amid rising supply and softer demand. “Builders are starting to pull back on new home starts in many markets,” Bank of America wrote. While the slowdown is broad-based, conditions vary regionally, with some areas such as the Midwest proving more resilient than others.

    “Since the Pandemic Housing Boom fizzled out in 2022, and the affordability squeeze was fully felt,” Lambert told Fortune, “the national power dynamic has slowly been shifting from sellers to buyers as homes have a harder time selling and active inventory for sale builds.”

    Still, Lambert noted the inventory picture varies significantly across the country. For instance, it remains most limited across notable sections of the Midwest and the Northeast, although still growing, he said. On the other hand, active inventory has neared or surpassed pre-pandemic 2019 levels in many parts of the Sun Belt and Mountain West, and he said that is where homebuyers have gained the most leverage.

    The trend comes as the Federal Reserve has begun trimming interest rates in an effort to support both broader economic growth and housing affordability. Whether those cuts will be enough to reignite demand remains an open question.

    For now, the data signals a market in transition: high inventory, moderating prices, and builders caught between a cautious consumer and the need to manage supply.

    For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing. 

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    Nick Lichtenberg

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  • DC home prices are still rising, but there’s a caveat skewing that headline – WTOP News

    While home sales have slowed, prices are still rising, which could indicate buyers are still willing to pay list prices or close to them for homes in the D.C. market.

    The D.C. area’s most expensive home sale in the second quarter was a McLean, Virginia, home that sold for $14 million.(Courtesy Washington Fine Properties)

    Home sales in the D.C. region’s market have slowed this spring and summer, and so have annual price gains. While sales have slowed, prices are still rising, which could indicate buyers are still willing to pay list prices or close to them for homes on the market here.

    But the metric that measures the median selling price of all properties being sold, including those in the upper 5% of price range, is defined as the luxury market. In the D.C. metro, that is homes priced at $1.8 million or more.

    “The most active buyers in the market right now are higher-income buyers,” said Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist at listing service Bright MLS. “Because they are more active in the market, they are actually skewing that median sold price, making it look like the overall market is seeing price gains. But it is really about the middle of homes being sold.”

    The luxury market has traditionally seen less competition from buyers, but Bright MLS noted a change in competition at the higher level starting in the second quarter of this year.

    “The luxury market is still pretty competitive,” Sturtevant said. “Homes are selling more quickly than other homes in the overall market. And, as always, luxury sales are more likely to be cash sales. So right now, the luxury market is slowing, but it is still more resilient than the overall market.”

    The annual median selling price gain in the overall D.C.-area market in the second quarter was 2.0%, compared to 2.3% in the luxury market.

    Luxury buyers also need to ask quickly. The median days on market for those listings in the second quarter was just 11 days, with 25.1% of sales closing above list price.

    The luxury market also appears to be more isolated from federal government spending and job cuts in the D.C. region than the overall market, though Sturtevant said that may change.

    “The threshold for the luxury market is $1.8 million,” she said. “That is an expensive home. But it is also a home that people who work in the federal government could potentially afford to purchase. We are going to see more impact on the housing market from the federal government cuts this fall, and I think that could rise up into the luxury segment of the market.”

    The definition of the luxury market may also need rethinking. Those entry-level luxury market prices no longer necessarily represent only wealthy buyers who may have no concern about how local economic changes affect them.

    “I think we are going to have to do a better job at differentiating between luxury — those $1.8 million and $2 million homes that include a lot of suburban, single-family homes. We need to distinguish that luxury market from the upper end,” Sturtevant said. “Because I think we are going to see a divergence in how those two markets perform this fall as the federal layoffs and cuts have more of an impact on our local housing market.”

    The D.C. region dominates the luxury market in the mid-Atlantic region, which Bright MLS listings cover. Five of the top 10 luxury market ZIP codes in the mid-Atlantic are here, including Dupont Circle’s 20007 in D.C., where 42% of second quarter sales were defined as luxury. In McLean, Virginia’s 22101, 38% of sales were luxury. ZIP codes in Bethesda, Arlington and Potomac all saw an outside share of total sales fall in the luxury category in the second quarter.

    ZIP code 20007 also ranked No. 2 in the mid-Atlantic for sales in the “ultra luxury market,” with 19% of sales priced in the top 1%, topped only by 24% in Princeton, New Jersey.

    All-cash sales accounted for one-third of all luxury sales in the second quarter. In the mid-Atlantic, the top all-cash market was Maryland’s Eastern Shore, where more than half of luxury properties are purchased with cash.

    The highest-priced sale in the D.C. region in the second quarter was a riverfront estate that sold for $14.05 million.

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  • Long Island lands a dozen zip codes on list of nation’s priciest | Long Island Business News

    Long Island lands a dozen zip codes on list of nation’s priciest | Long Island Business News

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    Long Island made another strong showing on the annual list of the 100 priciest zip codes in the U.S., placing 12 locales on the list.  

    The East End once again led Long Island’s representation on the priciest list of median home sales with eight zip codes making the top 100, including Sagaponack grabbing the second spot and Water Mill at number three.  

    Here are the Long Island zip codes and their median home sale prices on the 2024 top 100 list from PropertyShark.com: 

    #2 Sagaponack, $5.95 million 

    #3 Water Mill, $5.885 million 

    #19 Amagansett, $3.738 million 

    #31 Bridgehampton, $3.05 million 

    #48 Wainscott, $2.6 million 

    #48 Quogue, $2.6 million 

    #63 Mill Neck, $2.3 million 

    #68 Sag Harbor, $2.225 million 

    #71 Great Neck, $2.19 million 

    #79 Old Westbury, $2.1 million 

    #86 Montauk, $2 million 

    #97 Manhasset, $1.93 million 

    California dominated the top of the priciest zip codes list with seven in the top 10. Atherton was number one with a median home sales price of $7.9 million; Santa Barbara ranked fifth with a $5.052 million median; three zip codes in Newport Beach placed sixth, seventh and eighth with medians of $4.65 million to $4.763 million; Rancho Santa Fe was ninth with a median of $4.55 million; and Santa Monica was number 10 with a $4.41 million median. 

    Miami Beach had the only zip code besides the East End and California to make the top 10 priciest, coming in fourth with a median of $5.75 million. 

    To determine the most expensive zip codes in the U.S., Property Shark looked at residential transactions closed between Jan. 1, 2024, and Sept. 30, 2024, including condos; co-ops; and single- and two-family homes. Median sale prices were rounded to the nearest $1,000.  

    Only zip codes that registered a minimum of five residential transactions were considered. Due to a number of ties, 121 zip codes made the list of the 100 most expensive in 2024.  

    David Winzelberg

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  • Examining top issues for voters in Arizona, a key battleground state in 2024

    Examining top issues for voters in Arizona, a key battleground state in 2024

    Examining top issues for voters in Arizona, a key battleground state in 2024 – CBS News


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  • Homes for sale in Denver are sitting on the market longer as prices stay high

    Homes for sale in Denver are sitting on the market longer as prices stay high

    A home for sale in Washington Park West. Jan. 4, 2024.

    Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

    Homebuyers in metro Denver are getting some relief from the relentless climb in housing prices.

    The median price for a single-family home fell 3.1 percent in September compared to August, according to a report from the Denver Metro Association of Realtors. That marks a decline of 1.5 percent from the same time last year.

    Still, that slight dip is cold comfort for many working families and first-time homebuyers struggling to get a toehold in the housing market.

    At $630,000, the median price is about 24 percent higher than it was four years ago, the data shows. Shoppers are more likely to find a relative bargain on an attached home like a duplex. The median price for those kinds of properties is $403,500.

    Denver’s housing market has been slowing for a while as high mortgage rates make homes less affordable. Prices haven’t declined much. But now more homes are hitting the market and inventory is piling up.

    “Homes are simply spending more time on the market and experiencing more price reductions before finding a buyer,” said Libby Levinson-Katz, chair of the DMAR Market Trends Committee, in the report. “This is a direct result of buyer demand waning due to higher interest rates, and to some degree anticipation for the upcoming presidential election. Many buyers who I am working with are simply waiting for truly the perfect fit, before submitting an offer.”

    The number of homes available for sale in and around Denver has been rising steadily for the past year, according to the report.

    There’s now more than three months of inventory sitting on the market, which means it will take more than three months, on average, to sell a home. During the height of the pandemic-fueled housing frenzy of a few years ago, all the homes on the market would be gone in a matter of weeks.

    Mortgage rates are finally starting to fall now that U.S. regulators are lowering interest rates. So far, that hasn’t drawn Denver buyers off the sidelines.

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  • Could the “YIMBY” movement fix America’s affordable housing shortage?

    Could the “YIMBY” movement fix America’s affordable housing shortage?

    More U.S. cities and states are starting to say “yes, in my backyard” as they struggle to meet the housing needs of growing populations.  

    The “YIMBY” movement is a political effort to tackle the country’s housing shortage by increasing the housing supply with strategies like changing zoning codes and other regulations that limit home density. The United States is millions of homes short of what’s needed to meet demand, according to the national nonprofit group “Up for Growth.”   

    Minneapolis resident Bernice Duncan has been searching for a new home with more space for more than five years.  The telehealth professional works from home in a cramped two-bedroom apartment she shares with her two adult sons.  

    “Everybody is not able to move freely, like you would in a in a house or, you know, having your own office space,” said Duncan. 

    During the years she’s been looking, property values have soared. With a $1,600 monthly housing budget, she says she’s been priced out of the market. 

    “It’s been a struggle,” Duncan said. “As the economy continues to grow, your paycheck don’t,” she added. “You’re not going to pay less than $2,000.”  

    Saying “yes” to more housing 

    Twin-Cities YIMBY was formed in 2023 to advocate for policies that will generate more affordable housing options for people like Duncan. The group supports the elimination of zoning restrictions to allow for more home density across the Minneapolis area.  

    “In the past five years, our median housing price has increased by $100,000, which is a huge increase” said Paige Kahle, a realtor who founded Twin Cities YIMBY along with colleagues Nichole Hayden and Meghan Howard.  

    YIMBYs have been building a coalition of pro-housing advocates across the country to counter those who say “not in my back yard,” known as NIMBYs. 

    “I think it’s getting easier. But literally when you go to the local meetings, the city council meetings, planning commission meetings, there’s still NIMBYs that are very loud and very organized and often kind of angry because they don’t want this kind of housing near them,” said Kahle. 

    But without a plan to bring housing costs down, Kahle says the shortage is hurting home buyers and renters alike.  

    “They’re paying 50% of their income, 60% of their income on housing, which just isn’t sustainable,” she said.  ”We need more housing and we need it quickly,” said Kahle. “Traditionally, how we’ve addressed the housing crisis is through subsidies, massive subsidies to bring down the cost of housing for folks. But there just aren’t enough subsidies in the world to do that. So, we really need to look at these other mechanisms to increase the density and lower the cost of housing.” 

    Minneapolis 2040: The city’s plan 

    Addressing these concerns is the goal of the Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan. Passed in 2018, the ambitious bipartisan bill implemented historic zoning reforms to increase the number of available housing units including:  

    • The elimination of single-family-only zoning to permit build duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes in all neighborhoods.  
    • Height minimums for new residential buildings in high-density zones.  
    • The elimination of minimum parking requirements for new housing developments.  

    The plan has faced opposition from some homeowners who argue that increased density could undermine the character and charm of single-family neighborhoods.  

    “The 2040 Plan will hurt the uniqueness and architectural heritage of many neighborhoods,” said one opponent during a 2018 City Planning Commission meeting.  

    Implementation of the plan was paused in 2022 after environmental groups filed a lawsuit arguing the plan may have severe unintended consequences to the environment. In May, a state appeals court ruled to lift an injunction on the plan, and just last month the Minnesota State Supreme Court denied a petition for further review of the objections, clearing the way for the plan to continue.  

    “People want a place that they can live, [where] they can afford to raise their family, that’s safe and affordable. So, it’s really been part of the … regional conversation as well as the national conversation,” said Alene Tchourumoff of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve. 

    Over the next decade, the Minneapolis Fed is using multiple data sources to track the economic impact of these changes made as part of the 2040 plan. 

    “We really wanted to have a deeper understanding of what the effects of the policy change would be, recognizing the fact that these important policy changes in housing often take a long time to actually manifest,” said Tchourumoff. 

    There is some promising early data. According to a report by the Pew Charitable Trust, between 2017 and 2022, nearly 21,000 new units were permitted in Minneapolis — most in buildings with 20 or more units. In that same time, rents in the city rose by just 1% — far less than the rest of Minnesota, which saw a 14% rent increase.   

    Deregulation across the country 

    As Minnesota lawmakers consider expanding these rezoning reforms statewide, other states such as California, Oregon, Massachusetts and Montana have already implemented similar YIMBY policies.  

    The changes in Minneapolis are already making a difference for residents like Rebecca Hemmans, who became a first-time homeowner at 67 after viewing nearly 100 listings.   

    “I had this dream about living in a single-family home and sitting on my porch with my table of lemonade and glasses for the neighbors to wave at,” Hemmans said.   

    To accommodate her budget, she chose to adjust her dream — instead of a single-family home, she purchased an attached townhome, and she’s happy with the compromise.  

    “I don’t have to check with the landlord to say, “Hey, can I do this or do that?” she said. “If I want to paint my walls orange, I can do that.”

    Ash-har Quraishi


    ash-har-quraishi-2024-2.jpg

    Ash-har Quraishi is a national consumer correspondent based in Chicago. He is an Emmy Award-winning journalist with more than 25 years of local, national, international and investigative reporting experience. His work has been featured on CNN, Al Jazeera, The PBS NewsHour, A&E, “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and in The New York Times.

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  • Denver’s housing market feels topsy turvy to buyers and sellers

    Denver’s housing market feels topsy turvy to buyers and sellers

    Housing in La Alma/Lincoln Park. June 27, 2024.

    Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

    Let’s say you want to put your home up for sale in the Metro Denver housing market. You know that in recent years, buyers were scooping up houses sight unseen. They were outbidding each other into the stratosphere, driving prices increasingly higher. 

    You want the same perks sellers had just a couple of years back and don’t want to waste time negotiating with greedy buyers. You’re ready to cash in and move on. 

    But nobody’s biting at the price you’re willing to sell. So your home is just sitting there. 

    Or maybe you want to buy a new Denver home. But how can you?

    You’re looking at this new era of stratospheric prices established during the market frenzy. 

    The median price of a stand-alone house is $665,000, up just over 1 percent from this time last year, according to the Denver Metro Association of Realtors Market Trends Report.

    The median price for an attached property like a condo or a duplex is $410,000, down more than 2 percent from this time last year. 

    Add to those costs much higher interest rates, higher than 7 percent as of July 5, according to Realtor.com. Home ownership feels further out of reach than ever.

    Considering all that, you are afraid you’ll drop a big down payment and commit to high interest rates. Then home values could plummet, and your mortgage will be underwater.

    You don’t want to see a housing bubble burst like it did back in 2008 and find yourself broke. So you’re demanding good deals. You want an ideal home and a seller willing to drop the price or add concessions. 

    And unlike buyers over the past few years, you’re willing to wait as long as it takes until you get what you want. 

    Choosy buyers and sellers unwilling to compromise are having an outsized impact on the number of homes available in the Denver housing market. 

    “A once reliable market with a peak selling season in June has taken a detour,” commented realtor Libby Levinson-Katz, chair of the Denver Metro Association of Realtors Market Trends Committee. 

    The June housing market was sluggish. 

    In fact, last month, the number of available homes leaped more than 68 percent, to 10,214, from this time last year — and more than 11.5 percent month over month. That’s largely because homes aren’t selling as fast as they were.

    This trend gives buyers a much wider selection of properties to choose from.

    Sellers can still sell fast if they are willing to negotiate. Those who aren’t could be waiting with their properties on the market for months. 

    They’ll be in good company. Sellers have more homes sitting on the market now than at any time over the past few years, according to DMAR, and that number just keeps climbing.

    “The main culprit of higher interest rates is easy to identify,” explained Levinson-Katz. “Buyers fear a repeat of 2008, sellers hope for a return to 2021 conditions and renters expect interest rates to drop back to three percent.”

    None of these views, she maintains, are true. But they’re helping balance the market.

    All of these changes have some sellers holding off on entering the market. 

    Though properties are staying on the market longer, fewer are being listed. 

    The number of new listings dropped more than 16 percent to 5,825 in June, a month when the market is typically red hot.

    The number of closed sales plummeted more than 17 percent, while the number of pending sales increased by just over 1 percent. 

    “The number of contract terminations is rising,” according to DMAR’s Market Trends Report. “Sellers may need to be more cooperative and solutions-oriented during inspection negotiations to keep their closing on track.” 

    Typically, as summer roles on, fewer properties are listed.

    Sellers hope interest rates will drop in the fall. If that happens, they may be more likely to list. After all, lower interest rates make the prospect of taking on a mortgage easier for buyers to swallow. 

    “It is possible that we are simply experiencing a calm before the storm,” Levinson-Katz said. “Many consumers are holding off until the fall to align with the projection of lower mortgage rates. While the market typically slows down ahead of a presidential election, we may find ourselves in the throes of a bustling market this election cycle.” 

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  • CBS News price tracker shows how much food, utility and housing costs are rising

    CBS News price tracker shows how much food, utility and housing costs are rising

    Voters feeling frustrated with inflation


    Voters feeling frustrated with inflation and overall economy

    02:11

    As consumers cope with lingering inflation, CBS News is tracking the change in prices of everyday household expenses — from food at the grocery store to utilities and even rent — across the country.

    Drawing from a wide range of government and private data, the tracking charts below show how the cost of goods and services have changed since from before the pandemic to the most recent information available. That’s last month for most items.

    The price tracker is based on data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for food, household goods and services and Zillow for rent and home-purchase prices. Every chart notes, and links to, the source of the original data.

    In the case of recurring household costs, rents and home sales, the 2024 data cited is current through last month and it is compared to the same month in prior years dating back to 2019.

    The real estate data in the tracker is gathered by Zillow, which deeply studies home sales prices, rents and other housing costs using a combination of the listings on its own sites, public records and economic trends.

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  • Here are the most and least affordable major cities in the world

    Here are the most and least affordable major cities in the world

    Pittsburgh is well-known for its steel industry and for bringing ketchup to the French fry-loving masses. As it turns out, it is also one the most affordable places in the world, according to a new study. 

    In a report on international housing affordability by Chapman University and Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a Canadian think tank, Pittsburgh earned the title of most affordable among 94 major metropolitan areas in eight countries. Researchers based their ranking on median home price and median household income data from 2022. 

    Using a metric in the housing sector known as the price-to-income ratio, researchers divided the median home price of a community by the median household income of its residents to determine an affordability score for each city in the study. Cities with scores above 9 are considered “impossibly unaffordable” for residents. Pittsburgh earned a 3.1 score while Rochester and St. Louis both received a 3.4. 

    In cities like Charlotte, North Carolina; Boise, Idaho and Phoenix, home prices spiked dramatically after the pandemic and took months to cool down. But that same trend did not happen in Pittsburgh, Michael Reed real estate agent for Coldwell Banker Realty told CBS MoneyWatch, adding that home prices in the city have remained steady in recent years. 

    Steady home prices, combined with solid incomes in the health care and technology sector, have kept Pittsburgh affordable, Reed said, though prices could eventually rise as aging residents outbid with younger buyers on smaller houses.

    “A lot of our older population is downsizing and that group tends to be cash heavy and they fare better on the market than our younger, newer buyers,” Reed said. “So that could begin pushing our prices up.” 

    The median home sale price in Pittsburgh was $235,000 as of May, down nearly 8% from a year ago, according to online real estate brokerage Redfin.

    Throughout most of the country, the housing market has been tough sledding for both buyers and sellers this year as home prices reach record highs and mortgage rates hover around 7%. The median U.S. home price hit an all-time high last week of $394,000, up 4.4% from a year ago, according to Redfin. 

    Home prices rising faster than income worldwide

    To be sure, rising home prices are not a uniquely American issue, said Wendell Cox, the study’s author.

    “For decades, home prices generally rose at about the same rate as income, and homeownership became more widespread,” Cox said in the study. “But affordability is disappearing in high-income nations as housing costs now far outpace income growth. The crisis stems principally from land use policies that artificially restrict housing supply, driving up land prices and making homeownership unattainable for many.”

    Despite those issues, the U.S. is home to nine of the 10 most affordable cities in the Chapman study. Conversely, five U.S. cities ranked among the study’s top 10 least affordable cities. Hong Kong is the world’s least affordable city, with a score of 16.7. Sydney, Australia, is a distant second with 13.3, followed by Vancouver with 12.3.


    New data shows home sales fell in April as mortgage rates remained high

    02:59

    Here are the most affordable major cities in the world, according to the Chapman study:

     1. Pittsburgh (U.S.)
     2. Rochester, New York (U.S.)
     3. St. Louis (U.S.)
     4. Cleveland (U.S.)
     5. Edmonton, Alberta (Canada)
     6. Buffalo, New York (U.S.)
     7. Detroit (U.S.)
     8. Oklahoma City (U.S.)
     9. Cincinnati (U.S.)
    10. Louisville, Kentucky (U.S.)

    Here are the least affordable major cities in the world, according to the Chapman study:

      1. Hong Kong (China)
      2. Sydney, New South Wales (Australia)
      3. Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada)
      4. San Jose, California (U.S.) 
      5. Los Angeles (U.S.)
      6. Honolulu (U.S.)
      7. Melbourne, Victoria (Australia)
      8. San Francisco (U.S.)
      9. Adelaide, South Australia (Australia)
    10. San Diego (U.S.)

    Khristopher J. Brooks

    Khristopher J. Brooks is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch. He previously worked as a reporter for the Omaha World-Herald, Newsday and the Florida Times-Union. His reporting primarily focuses on the U.S. housing market, the business of sports and bankruptcy.

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  • Median Price for a California Home Passes $900K, a Record

    Median Price for a California Home Passes $900K, a Record

    The price of a typical home across the Golden State has surpassed $900,000, a record.

    The median price for an existing single-family house in California reached $904,210 in April, a first, the Orange County Register reported, citing a California Association of Realtors report.

    Home prices across the state rose 5.8 percent from the previous month and 11 percent in a year.

    The median crossed the $800,000 meridian for the first time in March 2022 on the heels of historically cheap mortgage rates.

    Record prices for single-family homes has put them beyond the reach of millions of residents, widening the affordability gap.

    The Realtors association reported the number of California homebuyers in April was below 300,000 for the 19th month in a row. Since 1990, home buying in the state has averaged 402,000 sales a month.

    A family hoping to buy a California home needed to earn $208,000 to qualify to buy a typical $814,000 home in the first quarter, a previous study by the association found. The mortgage qualifying standard for income has jumped 38 percent, or $55,000, in two years.

    The price threshold crossed the $200,000 mark in March 1991, at the end of that era’s housing bubble, according to the Register. That month’s 9.5 percent average rate for a 30-year mortgage, with a 20 percent down payment, meant a typical monthly payment of $1,345.

    Then median home prices across the state took a steady march toward being unreachable for many — surpassing $300,000 in March 2002, $400,000 in August 2003, $500,000 in April 2005, $600,000 in May 2018 and $700,000 in August 2020, according to the Register.

    When the price of a typical home in California shot past $900,000 last month, a limited number of qualified home buyers fought over a scant inventory of homes listed for sale, as interest rates  hit highs not seen in more than two decades.

    As a result, sales have averaged a mere 280,000 a month in this 25-month period. The month’s 7 percent interest rate created a monthly payment of $4,785 – up 53 percent from the previous threshold.

    — Dana Bartholomew

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    TRD Staff

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  • Denver realtors are overpricing homes. And it needs to end, says trade group

    Denver realtors are overpricing homes. And it needs to end, says trade group

    A home for sale in Washington Park West. Jan. 4, 2024.

    Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

    If you’ve looked for a Denver area home in recent years, you’ve likely noticed that there just haven’t been many to pick from on the market. That’s turning around.

    The number of new homes on the real estate market has been rising fast, jumping by more than 118% since 2022, according to a new monthly report from the Denver Metro Association of Realtors.

    The report looks at real-estate data from April in the Denver Metro, including Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Clear Creek, Denver, Douglas, Elbert, Gilpin, Jefferson and Park counties.

    “The increase in inventory is a very welcome turn of events for buyers who have been dealing with historically low inventory for years,” said Libby Levinson-Katz, the chair of the Denver Metro Association of Realtors’ Market Trends Committee. “Additionally, it’s a nice surprise as many sellers have been hesitant to list their homes in favor of maintaining their low two to five percent interest rates.”

    Even with more supply on the market, home prices continue to rise.

    The median price of a house was $665,000 at the end of the month, up by $25,000 from April of 2023.

    The median price of an attached property, like a condo or a duplex, was at $419,000, up $9,000 from this time in 2023.

    There has been a slight slowdown in how long properties are sitting on the market month-over-month. Zoom out, and that’s stayed flat over the past year, at seven days — still a fast turnaround and a sign that people are buying.

    But more supply likely means changes are coming, and the real estate industry is making adjustments in how it puts new homes on the market.

    “Inventory will continue to climb through May, so pricing conservatively has never been more important,” Levinson-Katz wrote. “Buyers on the hunt for their next property will likely choose the one at fair market value, with very little work needed. This is not the time to push the price or to place a home on the market to see if you can obtain the price you hope to achieve.”

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  • Home prices doubled in under 7 years in Cleveland

    Home prices doubled in under 7 years in Cleveland

    (NEXSTAR) – Stunned by skyrocketing home prices? You’re not alone.

    In 68 of the largest U.S. cities the average price has more than doubled in less than 10 years, a recent study by Point2Homes found.

    “A common home appreciation theory is that residential properties tend to double in value in about 10 years,” the study notes. “But this good news for investors spells bad news for buyers, considering that most of the country’s major cities had home prices double even faster than that.”

    Recent buyers in Spokane, Tampa, and Buffalo, for instance, may look back wistfully to 2017 when the average price was less than half of what it is now.

    As recently as 2019, homes in Detroit, where prices have doubled the quickest, were half what they are now, the study found.

    Looking at home prices in recent years may be the most painful for new homeowners in Irvine, California, however, which was the most expensive housing market on the list, jumping from $750K to $1.5 million in seven years.

    In terms of overall highest prices, eight of the top 10 most expensive U.S. cities in the fourth quarter of 2023 were in California, led by San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara ($1,750,300), San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward ($1,251,000), Salinas ($993,900) and San Diego-Carlsbad ($931,600), according to National Association of Realtors data.

    See the top 20 cities when it comes to home prices doubling in the shortest amount of time:

    Rank City Years It Took To Double
    1 Detroit, MI 4.9
    2 Spokane, WA 5.9
    3 Tampa, FL 6
    4 Miami, FL 6
    5 Baltimore, MD 6.1
    6 Scottsdale, AZ 6.2
    7 Buffalo, NY 6.4
    8 St. Petersburg, FL 6.6
    9 Jersey City, NJ 6.8
    10 Phoenix, AZ 6.8
    11 Gilbert, AZ 6.8
    12 Mesa, AZ 6.9
    13 Cleveland, OH 6.9
    14 Charlotte, NC 7
    15 North Las Vegas, NV 7
    16 Chandler, AZ 7
    17 Cincinnati, OH 7
    18 Boise, ID 7.1
    19 Milwaukee, WI 7.1
    20 Tucson, AZ 7.1
    (Credit: Point2Homes)

    In February, 2024 home prices across the country were up 6.4% year-over-year, according to Redfin, with an average sale price of $411,887.

    Cleveland, Ohio led all metros in growth last year (25.5%), followed by Birmingham, Alabama (24.4%); Boca Raton, Florida (22.5%); Richmond, Virginia (19%); Fort Wayne, Indiana (18.6%); Dallas, Texas (16.9%); Miami Beach, Florida (16.7%); Cincinnati, Ohio (15.9%); Meridian, Idaho (15.6%); and Lexington-Fayette, Kentucky (15.5%).

    “Homeowners have benefited from housing wealth accumulation. However, many homebuyers have been shocked at high housing costs, with a typical monthly mortgage payment rising from $1,000 three years ago to more than $2,000 last year,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun.

    Amid persistently high prices, prospective home buyers have at least one source of hope this year, thanks to a bombshell legal settlement.

    In March, the National Association of Realtors announced that it had agreed to pay $418 million to settle lawsuits over commissions traditionally tacked onto the home-buying transaction.

    The new rules also allow home buyers and sellers to negotiate lower agent commissions instead of the typical 5-6% of the sale that is currently split by brokers on both sides of the deal.

    Changes to the rules will take effect in mid-July.

    Jeremy Tanner

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  • Cash Buyers Ratchet Up SoCal Home Prices to Record Highs

    Cash Buyers Ratchet Up SoCal Home Prices to Record Highs

    Forget sky-high mortgage rates — Southern California buyers flush with cash have pushed home prices to an all-time record.

    The price for a typical home across the six-county region in March was $869,082, a 9 percent increase from a year earlier, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing figures from Zillow. 

    That’s 1 percent higher than the previous record in June 2022.

    With interest rates clocking in the upper 6 percent range, the monthly mortgage payment on the average home now tops $5,500, after a 20 percent down payment.

    Home prices hit a record high despite the high cost of borrowing because of too few homes for sale and a wealth gap with some buyers holding bags of cash who can bypass the soaring rates.

    When interest rates first spiked in 2022, buyers retreated, inventory piled up and home prices fell. Then the would-be sellers stalled, with many deciding they didn’t want to move and give up their sub-3 percent mortgages for costly loans.

    Inventory plunged and enough buyers returned to send home prices back up, according to the Times. The new buying pool: wealthy first-timers who aren’t forsaking a low-cost mortgage.

    Others are keeping their old home and buying another.

    Or they’re selling their old home and shoving their considerable equity into down payments well over 20 percent.

    RedFin’s Alin Glogovicean (RedFin)

    “People who have cash are not paying too much attention to interest rates,” Alin Glogovicean, an agent with Redfin who specializes in northeast L.A. He estimates a third of his deals include all-cash buyers, with another third plunking down at least 50 percent to launch a mortgage loan.

    At least two-thirds of the buyers with down payments of at least 30 percent aren’t investors, he said, but people who want to live in the home — often professionals such as architects who have saved, liquidated stock portfolios, built up equity or received help from family.

    Some are willing to break retirement nest eggs, an ill-advised strategy, according to financial experts.

    Some 23 percent of Los Angeles County homes sold in February were bought with all cash, up from 16 percent in 2021, according to Redfin. 

    Across the region, home prices have set records in Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura counties. In Los Angeles and Riverside counties, prices are less than 1 percent from their all-time highs.

    Only 11 percent of households in Los Angeles and Orange counties could afford a median-priced house during the fourth quarter, the smallest number since the housing bubble of the mid-2000s, according to the California Association of Realtors.

    While the number of listed homes has risen, inventory is still tight and expected to remain slim, according to forecasters. Rates may dip, but are expected to remain elevated.

    Going forward, that may mean prices won’t soar but also won’t fall much — if at all, especially because incomes for many households are growing.

    Zillow’s Orphe Divounguy (Linkedin)

    “We are going to continue to see robust price growth, but nothing near where we were in the pandemic,” Orphe Divounguy, a senior economist with Zillow, told the Times.

    If interest rates plunge, homes would become more affordable, but a new wave of buyers could flood the market and put more upward pressure on prices.

    To help housing truly become more affordable, Divounguy said, there must be housing construction and continued income growth. “The way out of this is not going to come from mortgage rates,” he said. 

    Across the state, home construction fell last year, with fewer building permits from the previous year, according to the Times, though there are signs of a turnaround in single-family construction of for-sale homes.

    — Dana Bartholomew

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    TRD Staff

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  • Guess how many homes under $300,000 are on the market in Denver

    Guess how many homes under $300,000 are on the market in Denver

    The Elisabetta apartments in Globeville. Aug. 1, 2023.

    Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

    The median price of a Denver area home rose to $595,000 in March — nearly 5% higher than homes were sold for at this time last year. 

    Realtors, gleeful spring finally came, had a good month, selling 3,512 homes — over 13% higher than in February. The industry earned nearly $2.45 billion in sales. 

    As summer approaches, things are looking up, according to the March Denver Metro Association of Realtors monthly Market Trends Report, covering market activity in Denver, Boulder, Broomfield, Gilpin, Clear Creek, Park, Jefferson, Douglas, Arapahoe, Adams and Elbert Counties. 

    More people are putting their homes on the market. 

    Home sellers have “begun to take the golden handcuffs off,” wrote Libby Levinson-Katz, the chair of the Market Trends Committee for the Denver Metro Association of Realtors. 

    “In many cases, these sellers have chosen to downsize,” she wrote. “The goal for these sellers is to sell their home and use the equity in their home to either purchase the next with their current equity or to obtain a significantly smaller loan. Regardless of their plans, buyers are very happy to see additional inventory.”  

    Maybe so, but when it comes to affordable houses, there aren’t nearly enough available to meet the demand.

    At the end of March, 19 houses under $299,000 were on the market in the Denver metro — a steep but imaginable home price for working people.

    For attached properties, like apartments and condos that often come with high homeowners association fees that have been steadily rising along with inflation, there were just 353 such homes on the market at the end of the month.

    Even the $300,00 to $499,999 market for houses had just 478 active listings at the end of the month, while the attached home market had 794. 

    The real estate industry is still making sense of a $418 million settlement in the National Association of Realtors litigation in the Sitzer-Burnett case, an anti-trust lawsuit. 

    As part of the case, the organization has axed a rule that mandates sellers offer to pay realtor fees for both buyers and sellers, conceivably dropping the price of buying homes. 

    How the market performs depends on the Federal Reserve’s next moves. 

    Over the past year, the central bank raised interest rates well above historic lows in recent years. 

    “Their mission is to cool inflation without causing a significant economic slowdown,” explained realtor and mortgage expert Nicole Rueth. “Striking this balance requires careful calibration of monetary policy.” 

    Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell indicated the bank would be lowering interest rates three times this year. That’s been good news for sellers and buyers alike, as high mortgage interest rates have kept many people out of the housing market. 

    But chances are that won’t happen until after the summer home-buying season. Raising interest rates hasn’t yet curbed inflation caused, in part, by strong job growth and consumer spending, Rueth noted. 

    On Wednesday, at Stanford University, Powell indicated the central bank would be holding off cutting interest rates until he was confident inflation was under 2%.

    Despite these uncertainties, the Denver Metro Association of Realtors predicts a hot late spring and summer market. 

    “We will continue to see increased inventory, increased buyer demand and the potential for competition,” explained Andrew Abrams, a realtor and member of the Denver Metro Area Realtors Market Trends Committee, in a statement. “While interest rates will pace the market, the seasonality will undoubtedly have a big impact.”

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