Sentinel Title Company

Watch the replay of today's housing market update webinar with Altos president Mike Simonsen: https://hubs.ly/Q02lgWK10

Strong finish to the year for real estate. 1. Inventory is slowly, steadily improving over last year. 2. Sales rates are climbing each week too. 3. Price cuts are falling. 4. Prices are inching up. The signals for the housing market as we roll into 2024 are pretty much all positive. But it’s not all positive. As home prices show signs of increasing this year, that means our affordability crisis shows no signs of abating any time soon. That’s this week’s Altos Research video. [video link follows below] - Available inventory of unsold single family homes fell to 513,000 over the holiday week. That’s now 4.4% more than last year.  - Each week a few more sellers than last year ease into the market. Since we’ve been so supply-constrained, I interpret more sellers as positive. - A few markets (eg Texas) look like inventory levels will even get back to pre-pandemic levels maybe this year. - Notably, the number of sales happening each week is climbing right along with the inventory.  - There were 20% more(!) new contracts started this holiday week compared to last year. 36,000 vs 30,000 - AFAICT, there is no imbalance between new sellers and buyers. Buyers are there. - In fact, the total count of homes with contracts pending is now, finally, greater than last year.  - 258,000 single family homes in contract. 2.4% more than where we ended 2022. - That implies growth in the number of home sales for all of 2024. We’re definitely past the worst of the housing market recession. - Buyers are buying at these current prices, too. The number of sellers who feel the need to reduce asking prices is decreasing.  - 34.8% of the active market has taken a price cut from the original list price. This’s down 150bp from last week and is right in the normal range.  - Price cuts peaked in November 2022. The corresponding low in sales prices happened in April 2023, five months later. Fewer price cuts now implies reasonable sales price stability through mid-2024. - The median price of single family homes in the US ended 2023 at $415,000. That’s almost 3% above EOY2022.  - The price of the new listings came in at $355,000 which is 5% more than a year prior. January 1 is the lowest price point in each year’s cycle. - Depending on which home price measure is your favorite, home prices will conclude 2023 up 3-6%. We call it 3%. - Assuming mortgage rates stay stable in the 6s or low 7s, these trends are poised to continue for 2024.