Monthly Housing Costs Hit All-Time High
The spring home buying season is unremarkable, as it is holding homebuyers due to high housing costs and overall economic instability this year. Mortgage-purchase applications are down 6% every month, and pending home sales are declining 2.8% annually, even the Redfin’s Homebuyer Demand Index, which is essentially a measure of home tours and buying services from Redfin agents, calculated it to be flat.
According to Redfin News, “A lot of people who would normally be making moves right now are standing still,” said Bliss Ong, a Redfin Premier agent in Seattle. “They want to ride out this period of economic uncertainty and wait until they feel more secure to make this huge financial decision. The people who are buying are picky; for instance, buyers aren’t making offers if a home is on a busy street or if it has one bathroom instead of two bathrooms. When the market was hotter, those homes would fly off the shelves despite not checking every single box.”
