It’s the end of December, so brace yourself for the onslaught of crystal ball-wielding, looking-forward-looking-back pieces from just about every blog and website out there.
Of course, daltxrealestate.com is no exception. We looked at the latest reports, and it looks like the housing market in December has been slower than molasses in January, perpetuating the cooling we’ve been seeing since October.
And next year? Look forward to higher interest rates that could scare off some buyers, and existing home sales will slow as a result. Of course, everyone’s still optimistic on jobs, so at least we have that? Some think that this signals a stabilizing of the market in most areas that have returned to pre-economic downturn levels.
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Here’s how December went according to Realtor.com:
· Listing inventory continues to move faster than this time last year. It is expected to trend down 7 percent over November, following the usual holiday cool down. As expected, inventory also continues to move slower as markets prepare for the New Year. The median age of inventory is now 93 days, which is up 11 percent from November, but down 7 percent year-over-year.
· Median listing prices are expected to show a slight decrease over last month, falling 1 percent to $228,000, a move that still represents an increase of 9 percent year-over-year.
The site’s “Hotness Index” has Dallas in the No. 4 spot, up from No. 5 last month. Also of note: Midland made its way on the list at the No. 20 spot. Impressive!
And here are the Freddie Mac Predictions for 2016 from HousingWire:
- Expect the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage to average below 4.5% for 2016 on an annualized basis
- Gradually higher mortgage interest rates will present an affordability challenge, but expect a strengthening labor market and pent-up demand to carry 2015’s home sales momentum into 2016
- Expect house price growth to moderate a bit to 4.4% in 2016 driven in part by the reduction in homebuyer affordability and reduced demand as a result of Fed tightening
- Housing activity will grow in 2016 despite monetary tightening. Expect total housing starts to increase 16% year-over-year and total home sales to increase 3%
- While home purchases will increase next year, higher interest rates will reduce the refinance volume pushing overall mortgage originations lower in 2016 than in 2015
I know what you’re thinking: “First TRID, now this?”
However, if you’ve been paying attention, you will have been nurturing leads since August when CoreLogic expected an overall cooling in sales as demand outstripped supply and construction was saddled in multi-family rentals. Still, there’s a lot of room for interpretation when it comes to markets like North Texas.
What do you think? How was your 2015? Where do you see your market in 2016?
