Experts predict what the 2022 housing market will bring
February 16, 2022
Last year was great for selling a home but not a great year if you were trying to buy one. Home prices rose sharply and the number of homes for sale declined. Although the 2022 housing market will still tilt toward sellers, it offers a slightly better chance for buyers to snag their dream homes.
The story of 2021 was how quickly home prices accelerated. The national median home price hit $362,800 in June, an all-time high, according to the National Association of Realtors. The Case-Shiller home price index peaked in August, when prices rose 19.8 percent year-over-year that month. Phoenix home prices were up 33.3 percent year-on-year, San Diego home prices were up 26.2 percent, and Tampa home prices were up 25.9 percent.
Low mortgage rates and limited supply helped push prices higher. There were just 1.38 million homes for sale nationally in June, down 23 percent year-over-year, according to Redfin.
“The ongoing pandemic, including its seismic effect on the U.S. economy and the way Americans live and work, has made 2021’s housing market anything but typical,” said Daryl Fairweather, Redfin’s chief economist. “Remote work, low mortgage rates, a shortage of building materials and wealth inequality that has allowed an influx of affluent Americans to buy vacation homes, to name just a few factors, have come together to create a historic year for real estate. Buyers paid more for homes, bought sooner than they planned, searched outside their hometowns or all of the above. [2021’s] frenzied housing market has been one for the books — but it may become more balanced in 2022.”
According to Redfin data, the typical home sold in 15 days last year, and more than 60 percent went off the market in two weeks.
NAR’s profile of home buyers and sellers, an annual report now in its 40th year, found that about a third of buyers in 2021 purchased their homes for above the asking price. First-time buyers increased to 34 percent last year, up from 31 percent in 2020. That was the largest jump since 2017. The typical first-time buyer was 33 years old.
Last year's “frenzied housing market has been one for the books — but it may become more balanced in 2022,” said Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather.
By Kathy Orton - The Washington Post
January 10, 2022 at 8:00 a.m. EST
