What many had hoped would be a rosy spring home-buying season ended as a thorny challenge for many prospective home buyers already demoralized by a frustrating market.
Yet, even as sales stalled amid elevated mortgage rates and home prices, one silver lining emerged—more resale inventory entered the market, which has begun to put some downward pressure on the pace of home price growth.
Other good news for home shoppers is the decline in the median price for a new home—now below the median resale home price—even as builders continue offering incentives to lure buyers.
Nonetheless, experts say the housing market will only see renewed momentum once mortgage rates drop enough to ease buyer affordability obstacles and incentivize homeowners locked in at low rates to move.
Housing Market Forecast for 2024
Experts insist the housing market will improve despite high mortgage rates, out-of-reach home prices and sluggish sales transactions amid dampening demand.
Unfortunately, hopeful buyers continue to see a delay in this yearned-for transformation, thanks to several ongoing headwinds. One is inflation taking its sweet time cooling off, further delaying the Federal Reserve from cutting the federal funds rate.
Mortgage rates indirectly track this benchmark interest rate banks use as a guide for overnight lending. Consequently, with the federal funds rate at its highest level in over two decades, mortgage rates—and borrowers—are feeling the added impact on their ability to afford a home.
Meanwhile, U.S. home prices remain unaffected by persistently high mortgage rates, posting an annual 6.3% gain in April, according to the latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index. Even as this annual gain marked a slowdown from the 6.5% gain in March, the index still broke the previous month’s record high.
Many experts expect a Fed rate cut will help stimulate the housing market, but it remains unclear when—and if—even a single cut will occur in 2024.
Will the Housing Market Finally Recover in 2024?
For a housing recovery to occur, several conditions must unfold.
“For the best possible outcome, we’d first need to see inventories of homes for sale turn considerably higher,” says Keith Gumbinger, vice president at online mortgage company HSH.com. “This additional inventory, in turn, would ease the upward pressure on home prices, leveling them off or perhaps helping them to settle back somewhat from peak or near-peak levels.”
Of course, mortgage rates would need to cool off, which seems promising given the recent declines. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate trended down over the course of June and early July, coming in at 6.95% for the week ending July 3.
However, when mortgage rates finally go on the descent, Gumbinger says don’t hope they cool too quickly. Rapidly falling rates could create a surge of demand that wipes away any inventory gains, causing home prices to rebound.
“Better that rate reductions happen at a metered pace, incrementally improving buyer opportunities over a stretch of time, rather than all at once,” Gumbinger says.
He adds that mortgage rates returning to a more “normal” upper 4% to lower 5% range would also help the housing market, over time, return to 2014-2019 levels. Yet, Gumbinger predicts it could be a while before we return to those rates.
NAR To Implement Settlement Agreement Changes in August
Following years of litigation, the NAR has agreed to pay $418 million to settle a series of high-profile antitrust lawsuits filed in 2019 on behalf of home sellers. The settlement received preliminary court approval in April. A judge is expected to grant final approval in November. Meanwhile, NAR announced that the new required practices will go into effect on August 17.
The required new rules prohibit broker compensation offers on multiple listing services (MLS), the private databases that allow local real estate brokers to publish and share information about residential property listings.
Moreover, sellers will no longer be responsible for paying buyer broker commissions—upending an accepted practice that has been in place for years—and real estate agents participating in the MLS must establish written representation agreements with buyers.
If you sold a home in the past ten years, you may be eligible for a small piece of this settlement pie. Visit realestatecommissionlitigation.com for more information about filing a claim.
Housing Inventory Forecast: When Will There Be Sufficient Supply To Reduce Prices?
Despite more resale homes entering the market, the inventory shortage remains severe and likely will for some time, thanks to multiple headwinds.
For one, many homeowners remain “locked in” at ultra-low mortgage rates, unwilling to exchange for a higher rate in a high-priced housing market. Consequently, demand continues to outpace housing supply—and likely will for a while.
“I don’t expect to see a meaningful increase in the supply of existing homes for sale until mortgage rates are back down in the low 5% range, so probably not in 2024,” says Rick Sharga, founder and CEO of CJ Patrick Company, a market intelligence and business advisory firm.
New home construction has provided some relief, but not enough to fill the inventory gap meaningfully.
The U.S. remains 4.5 million homes short, up from 4.3 million a year ago, according to Zillow analysis.
Entry-level home supply is particularly dire, contributing to an ongoing cycle of propped-up demand and inflated prices.
Here’s what the latest home values look like around the country.
Home Builder Sentiment Dips
Builder sentiment continues to wilt with the summer heat.
High mortgage rates and sticky inflation are largely to blame for the dampened outlook for new construction, with builder confidence sliding from 45 to 43 in May, according to the most recent National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI). This is the second consecutive month of downward movement and negative sentiment.
A reading of 50 or above means more builders see good conditions ahead for new construction.
Meanwhile, the construction of new homes, which had been on a tear, helping to fill the hole left by scant resale inventory, has slowed.
Permits for new single-family homes fell to their lowest seasonally adjusted annual rate since June 2023 amid builder blahs, dipping 2.9% month-over-month in May, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Housing starts were down 5.2%, and completions slid 8.5% from April.
However, there’s a silver lining for hopeful buyers—25% of builders slashed prices in May to boost sales, and more were open to offering incentives.
Residential Real Estate Stats: Existing, New and Pending Home Sales
Current and anticipated home sales transactions fizzled across the board in May thanks to scorching-high mortgage rates. Here’s what the latest home sales data has to say.
Existing-Home Sales
Existing-home sales dipped 0.7% in May, according to the latest report from NAR, marking the third straight month of declines as ascending mortgage rates and home prices deterred potential buyers. In May 2023, home buyers could get a mortgage rate well over half a percent lower at a time when homes were also more affordable.
Sales also fell 2.8% compared to May last year.
Experts believe home sales activity will perk up once inflation eases and the Fed finally starts to cut interest rates. Nonetheless, many prospective buyers—particularly first-time and lower-income home shoppers—will likely be left out in the cold, with the median price for an existing home in May soaring 5.8% from a year ago to a new record high of $419,300.
"Home prices reaching new highs are creating a wider divide between those owning properties and those who wish to be first-time buyers," said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at NAR, in the report. “The mortgage payment for a typical home today is more than double that of homes purchased before 2020.”
One upside to fewer sales is that resale inventory has been loosening since December. The latest NAR data shows inventory growing 6.7% month-over-month, logging 1.28 million unsold homes at the end of March. Still, only 3.7 months of inventory remain at the current monthly sales pace. Most experts consider a balanced market between four and six months.
New Home Sales
Meanwhile, new homes are also not invulnerable to high mortgage rates despite their shiny appeal.
Amid mortgage rates hovering close to or above 7%, May sales of newly constructed single-family houses plunged 11.7% 4.7% compared to April and 16.5% from a year ago, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau and HUD data.
The good news for prospective buyers is that the slow pace of new home sales puts new home inventory at a level not seen since early 2008, according to Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist at Bright MLS.
“Buyers that remain in the market are starting to have more leverage, and sellers of existing homes are increasingly offering concessions, including help with closing costs and money toward repairs,” said Sturtevant.
Moreover, those shopping for new construction will be happy to hear that the median price for a new home in May fell $500 to $417,400—nearly two thousand dollars below the median existing-home price.
| RECENT HOME SALES DATA | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Month
|
New Home Median Sale Price
|
Existing-Home Median Sale Price
|
New vs. Existing Price Difference
|
Percentage Difference
|
|
February 2024
|
$420,900
|
$383,800
|
$37,100
|
9.7%
|
|
March 2024
|
$436,900
|
$392,900
|
$44,000
|
11.0%
|
|
April 2024
|
$417,900
|
$406,600
|
$11,300
|
2.8%
|
|
May 2024
|
$417,400
|
$419,300
|
-$1,900
|
-0.45%
|
Pending Home Sales
And don’t expect home sales numbers to heat up much as we move through summer.
NAR’s Pending Homes Sales Index dipped 2.1% in May. This reading comes on the heels of a dismal April when the index plummeted 7.7%. Mortgage rates remained above 7% over much of those two months. Year-over-year pending transactions also took a nosedive in May, sinking 6.6%.
A pending home sale marks the point in the purchase transaction when the buyer and seller agree on price and terms and is considered a leading indicator of a closed existing-home sale within the next one to two months.
With a 70.8 index reading, the pending sales pace remains at a four-year low—or the weakest since the earliest days of the pandemic.
However, despite home prices continuing to break records, experts expect loosening inventory and evidence of a slowing economy to soon provide at least some relief for home shoppers.
“With mortgage rates falling below 7% once again in June, frozen buyer activity may start to thaw in the second half of the summer,” said Hannah Jones, senior. economic research analyst at Realtor.com, in an emailed statement.
Spring Home Shoppers Face Chilly Affordability Challenges: Will Summer Be Better?
Spring home-buying season never sprung, thanks to persistently high housing costs keeping frustrated shoppers on the sidelines.
In the week ending May 30, when mortgage rates were 7.03%, borrowers who put 20% down on a $419,300 median-priced resale home with a 30-year mortgage had to shell out a monthly mortgage payment of $2,238, not including property taxes and insurance.
By comparison, someone who purchased a resale home a year ago when the median price was $396,500 and the 30-year-fixed mortgage rate was 6.57% is paying $2,019—or $219 less per month.
Considering this math, it’s no wonder that the latest NAR Housing Affordability Index reading receded from 101.12 in March to 95.9 in April. A national index reading below 100 indicates that a median-priced home is unaffordable for the typical family earning a median income.
So, when will hopeful home buyers expect to get some relief?
Despite the typical first-time home buyer can only afford 29% of homes for sale nationwide, according to the First Time Home Buyer Outlook Report published by First American Financial Corp, deputy chief economist Odeta Kushi says there is “a light at the end of the tunnel” due to anticipated slower home price growth and lower mortgage rates.
Sam Khater, chief economist at Freddie Mac, noted in a press release that the 30-year mortgage rate hit its lowest level in nearly three months and expects rates to decline further over the summer.
Pro Tips for Buyers and Sellers
Here are some expert tips to increase your chances for an optimal outcome in this tight housing market.
Pro Tips for Buying in Today’s Real Estate Market
Hannah Jones, a senior economic research analyst at Realtor.com, offers this expert advice to aspiring buyers:
- Know your budget. Instead of focusing on price, figure out how much you can afford as a monthly payment. Your monthly housing payment is influenced by the price of the home, your down payment, mortgage rate, loan term, home insurance and property taxes.
- Be flexible about home size and location. Perhaps your budget is sufficient for a small home in your perfect neighborhood, or a larger, newer home further out. Understanding your priorities and having some flexibility can help you move quickly when a suitable home enters the market.
- Keep an eye on the market where you hope to buy. Determine the area's available inventory and price levels. Also, pay attention to how quickly homes sell. Not only will you be tuned in when something great hits the market, you can feel more confident moving forward with purchasing a well-priced home. A real estate agent can help with this.
- Don't be discouraged. Purchasing a home is one of the largest financial decisions you’ll ever make. Approaching the market confidently, armed with good information and grounded expectations will take you far. Don't let the hustle of the market convince you to buy something that’s not in your budget, or not right for your lifestyle.
— Scott Bridges, senior managing director at Pennymac and Forbes Advisor advisory board member
Pro Tips for Selling in Today’s Real Estate Market
Gary Ashton, founder of The Ashton Real Estate Group of RE/MAX Advantage, has this expert advice for sellers:
- Research comparable home prices in your area. Sellers need to have the most up-to-date pricing intel on comparable homes selling in their market. Know the market competition and price the home competitively. In addition, understand that in some price points it’s a buyer's market—you’ll need to be prepared to make some concessions.
- Make sure your home is in top-notch shape. Homes need to be in great condition to compete and create a strong “online curb appeal.” Well-maintained homes and attractive front yards are major features that buyers look for.
- Work with a local real estate agent. A real estate agent or team with a strong local marketing presence and access to major real estate portals can offer significant value and help you land a great deal.
- Don’t put off issues that require attention. Prepare the home by making any repairs or improvements. Removing any objections that buyers may see helps focus the buyer on the positive attributes of the home.
Will the Housing Market Crash in 2024?
As already-high home prices continue trending upward, you may be concerned that we’re in a bubble ready to pop. However, the likelihood of a housing market crash—a rapid drop in unsustainably high home prices due to waning demand—remains low for 2024.
“[T]he record low supply of houses on the market protects against a market crash,” says Tom Hutchens, executive vice president of production at Angel Oak Mortgage Solutions, a non-QM lender.
Moreover, experts point out that today’s homeowners stand on much more secure footing than those coming out of the 2008 financial crisis, with many borrowers having substantial home equity.
“In 2024, I expect we’ll see home appreciation take a step back but not plummet,” says Orphe Divounguy, senior macroeconomist at Zillow Home Loans.
This outlook aligns with what other housing market watchers expect.
“Comerica forecasts that national house prices will rise 2.9% in 2024,” said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank, in an emailed statement.
Divounguy also notes that several factors, including Millennials entering their prime home-buying years, wage growth and financial wealth are tailwinds that will sustain housing demand in 2024.
Even so, with fewer homes selling, Dan Hnatkovskyy, co-founder and CEO of NewHomesMate, a marketplace for new construction homes, sees a price collapse within the realm of possibility, especially in markets where real estate investors scooped up numerous properties.
"If something pushes that over the edge, the consequences could be severe,” said Hnatkovskyy, in an emailed statement.
Will Foreclosures Increase in 2024?
Lenders began foreclosures on 22,385 properties nationwide in May, up 3% from the previous month but down 4% from a year ago, according to real estate data firm Attom.
Meanwhile, completed foreclosures dipped slightly compared to the previous month, with real estate-owned properties, or REOs, declining by 1% in April. More notably, REOs were down 28% from a year ago. REOs are homes that didn’t sell at foreclosure auctions, with mortgage lenders taking possession of the properties.
“May’s foreclosure activity highlights nuanced shifts in the housing market,” said Rob Barber, CEO at Attom, in a report. ”While we observed a slight increase in foreclosure starts, the decline in completed foreclosures indicates resilience in certain areas.”
Whatever patterns evolve in the coming months, experts generally don't expect to see a wave of foreclosures in 2024.
“Foreclosure activity continues to lag behind pre-pandemic levels and is still at about 70% of 2019 numbers,” says Sharga.
Sharga explains that a significant factor contributing to today’s comparatively low levels of foreclosure activity is that homeowners—including those in foreclosure—possess an unprecedented amount of home equity.
Homeowners with mortgages saw a collective increase of $1.5 trillion in home equity, lifting total net homeowner equity to over $17 trillion in Q1 2024, the highest figure since late 2022, according to the latest CoreLogic home equity report.
“For a homeowner in the early stage of foreclosure, that equity helps them avoid a foreclosure sale, either by leveraging the equity to pay down past due mortgage bills, or by selling their property in order to protect the equity they'd otherwise lose at the auction,” Sharga says.
When Will Be the Best Time To Buy a Home in 2024?
Buying a house—in any market—is a highly personal decision. Because homes represent the largest single purchase most people will make in their lifetime, it’s crucial to be in a solid financial position before diving in.
Use a mortgage calculator to estimate your monthly housing costs based on your down. But if you’re trying to predict what might happen next year, experts say this is probably not the best home-buying strategy.
“The housing market—like so many other markets—is almost impossible to time,“ Divounguy says. “The best time for prospective buyers is when they find a home that they like, that meets their family’s current and foreseeable needs and that they can afford.”
Gumbinger agrees it’s hard to tell would-be homeowners to wait for better conditions.
“More often, it seems the case that home prices generally keep rising, so the goalposts for amassing a down payment keep moving, and there's no guarantee that tomorrow's conditions will be all that much better in the aggregate than today's.”
Divounguy says “getting on the housing ladder” is worthwhile to begin building equity and net worth.
– Scott Bridges, senior managing director at Pennymac and Forbes Advisor advisory board member
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Will declining mortgage rates cause home prices to rise?
Declining mortgage rates will likely incentivize would-be buyers anxious to own a home to jump into the market. Expect this increased demand amid today’s tight housing supply to put upward pressure on home prices.
What will happen if the housing market crashes?
Most experts do not expect a housing market crash in 2024 since many homeowners have built up significant home equity. The issue is primarily an affordability crisis. High interest rates and inflated home values have made purchasing a home challenging for first-time homebuyers.
Is it smart to buy real estate before a recession?
If you’re in a financial position to buy a home you plan to live in for the long term, it won’t matter when you buy it because you will live in it through economic highs and lows. However, if you are looking to buy real estate as a short-term investment, it will come with more risk if you buy at the height before a recession.
