May Real Estate Update

Single Family Home Sales Rose in 99% of Metro Areas!

According to the National Association of REALTORS® the year started off with strong home price growth for the first quarter of 2021. Prices continued to rise, with 89% of the markets showing double-digit home price appreciation. National median prices rose 16.2% year-over-year to $319,200. It's debatable if this is sustainable, if you look at local prices in the chart below, some of our local markets have had incredible gains over the last few months. NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun anticipates that the economy will grow at a 4.5% rate in 2021, mainly driven by consumer spending. "With more inventory and some easing in demand, home prices are expected to shift to mid-single-digit appreciation by the fourth quarter and in 2022," Yun said. Yun predicts that the median existing-home sales price will increase at a slower pace of 7% in 2021.

The good news for homeowners is that they are benefiting. ATTOM Data Solutions' first-quarter 2021 U.S. Home Equity & Underwater Report says that 17.8 million or roughly a third of residential properties in the US are considered equity-rich, which means the combined estimated amount of loans secured by those properties was 50 percent or less of their estimated market value.

Overall good news for the real estate market as short sales would be less likely with so much equity being accrued. Bottom line is that it's a sellers market, at least for the foreseeable future.

 
Single family home prices(median) for  February 2021-April 2021: 
  

*Please note that this area had few sales so percentages
are somewhat misleading

Weekly national mortgage rates for loans under $400,000, top credit scores:
 

Powered by MortgageCalculator.org