Double-Digit Price Appreciation.
The National Association of Realtors reported, this week in real estate, that 142 of 161 metro areas experienced double-digit price appreciation annually in the fourth quarter of 2020. Below are a few newsworthy events from the second week of February that influence our business:
NAR: 88% of Metros See Double-Digit Price Gains.
Eighty-eight percent of 161 (142) metros tracked by the National Association of Realtors posted double-digit price increases annually in the fourth quarter of 2020. That marks a jump from 115 metros that posted such growth in the third quarter. The national median existing-home price jumped nearly 15% on a year-over-year basis in the fourth quarter to $315,900, NAR reports. All major regions of the country saw double-digit year-over-year price growth. The Northeast led with a 20.7% year-over-year hike, followed by the West at 15.5%, the Midwest at 15.1%, and the South at 14%. Full Story…
New Home Outlook: Sales Expected to Rise in 2021.
The construction of new homes is important to meet the shelter needs of America’s expanding population. CoreLogic public records data show that closings on single-family new-home sales were up 12% year-over-year in the six months before the pandemic hit. The pandemic derailed closings last spring, but only temporarily. Completions of one-family homes rebounded by summer, remained brisk the rest of 2020, and were the highest annual total since 2007. Because new homes have the latest amenities and tend to be larger than older homes, they generally have a higher price tag. We took CoreLogic sales data by metro and evenly divided sales into three price groups: entry-level, mid-level, and premium. Across all metro areas, we found that new homes comprised about 6% of entry-level sales and about 19% of high-end sales. Full Story…
Mortgage Activity Remains Higher Year-Over-Year.
For the four-week period ending on February 5, 2021, the Mortgage Bankers Association’s latest Weekly Application Surveys showed sustained elevated activity, unseen through most of 2020, except at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. While purchasing maintained higher levels of activity compared to the previous four-week period (i.e., the last two weeks of December 2020 thru the first two weeks of January 2021), the data show that refinancing was the larger driver of the recent, sustained level of high activity in the Market Composite Index. Year-over-year gains for purchasing and refinancing continued to show strength at 17% and 46%, respectively (for the latest week). Full Story…
Originally compiled & posted by Jason Waugh on the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Northwest Real Estate company blog.
