What will the real estate market look like in 2021?
January 11, 2021
Market experts say the pandemic is a main predictor.
The nation will continue to see COVID-19’s unprecedented seller’s market effect on the single-family housing market, experts say, and it will be evident in North Carolina.
Since the summer’s housing boom began, due to the Triangle’s existing popularity and to all-time-low federal interest rates, which allow more people to afford mortgages.But the boom has also led to home prices rising due to scarcity, with the supply of available, already built homes reaching record lows since construction halted in the beginning of the pandemic. This has resulted in heightened costs for home construction materials.
“I know that these builders have had to proactively raise their prices in an effort to try to slow down the sales,” said Amanda Hoyle, the Triangle’s regional director for Metrostudy, a residential housing data firm.“[Homebuilders] have a limited number of lots that are entitled to start building on,” in addition to limited material delivery and limited labor, Hoyle said an in interview. “The homebuilding market is going great, but it’s putting a lot of pressure on builders to deliver and deliver at the quality that buyers are expecting.”
Homebuilders will continue working through this “bottleneck” into 2021 until more normal economic conditions can resume.
The incoming Biden Administration and the pending Senate party leadership will affect the housing market, said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, in a December presentation.
If they manage the COVID-19 vaccine delivery well, it will allow for job creation as the economy recovers.
