New homes continue to be a very popular option among prospective home buyers, assuming they can find a new home to buy, of course. According to a new report, mortgage applications for new home purchases increased in March, continuing a trend that stretches back into late last year.
Now that we're more than three months into 2021, we're starting to get a relatively clear picture of what's going on in the housing market. The overarching themes so far: low inventory, slowing home sales, and rising prices. But what about what's going to happen for the rest of the year?
For well over a year, the mortgage market has been dominated by refinances, a function of interest rates hitting lows that were previously unheard of and staying that way for most of 2020. But it looks like those days may soon be in the rearview mirror. Is it Officially a Purchase Market Now?
If there's been one constant theme in housing over the last several months, it's been how the lack of available inventory is impacting the market. Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be a light at the end of the inventory tunnel right now.
In a time when nearly two-thirds of home buyers made an offer on a home without ever seeing it in person, a new survey shows that home staging has perhaps never been more important.
If one was looking for the hottest housing markets over the next year, one simply needs to follow the old adage: Go west, young man.
Over the last few months, home prices have been rising faster than they have in decades. But it appears that prices may be beginning to calm down a bit. That's not to say that prices aren't still rising, because they are, but the speed at which home prices are increasing seems to be slowing down.
Spring is usually the time of the year when the housing market is the hottest, but that may not be the case this year. Instead of home sales heating up, it's beginning to look like sales will be cooling off as the weather begins to warm up.
In recent years, the health of the Federal Housing Administration's flagship insurance fund has continually improved, leading to speculation that the FHA could reduce its mortgage insurance premiums to ease the costs for borrowers with an FHA loan. But it appears no such cut is coming…at least not any time soon.
Rising lumber costs have already been at fault for slowing down the construction of new homes. Now, those costs appear to be slowing down new home sales as well. Read about how home sales dropped to lowest level since May 2020.