Mortgage rates tick lower again
The national average rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage dipped again on Tuesday, falling 0.01% to 7.11%* ahead of today’s inflation data release. Market watchers are predicting a 0.3% increase in core prices, month-over-month. However, the difference between a 0.2% change and a 0.4% change could have huge implications for the bond market.
The Producer Price Index was released yesterday, and it was a fairly mixed bag of data that didn’t provide the clear direction the market is looking for.
What does the latest housing market data say?
The most recent weekly housing market report from Altos Research was just released, and the data is a bit mixed at the moment. Home prices are showing signs of weakness, but we’re not seeing a dramatic shift in homebuying activity.
As of this week there are just over 568,000 single-family homes available on the market. That’s up 35% from last year, but still much lower than levels seen in 2017-to-2019. We should continue to see inventory ramp up into the fall and may end up closer to 700,000 available units by the end of September if the current trends hold.
This past week saw 69,000 new listings added. That’s about 5% higher than the same time period last year, but actually down 3% week-over-week. We need more data to understand if we’re seeing sellers staying out of the market or if this is just a data blip and will continue to see growth.
Homes in contract last week sat at 393,000 units. That’s up only 2% from 2023. This is likely a function of mortgage rates staying higher and keeping some buyers on the sidelines.
When it comes to home prices, the median price of homes on the market was $450,000 last week. That’s actually unchanged from last year and has been sideways for a few weeks now. This could indicate that we’ve seen the peak for the year, and we’ll start to see a seasonal cool off heading into the fall.
Is Austin’s housing market moving in favor of buyers?
The Austin housing market was a poster child for pandemic buying just a few years ago. The average home price in the Austin, TX metro area saw a $170k increase during the COVID pandemic. Now? It’s starting to see major corrections.
The median home price in the Austin area sits at $557,000. That’s down 9.5% from it’s pandemic peak two years ago.
Kent Redding, the president of the Austin Board of realtors, stated, “We mirrored what happened across the country: We saw a lot of demand, which drove up prices really quickly. But that [housing boom] was outside the norm. It was a blip on the map.”
Austin has seen an inventory squeeze for the past two years. That’s changed with new housing projects starting to come onto the market and folks looking to sell. The current supply in Austin stands at 3.8 months of inventory. That’s way up from pandemic levels, but still below the 5-to-6 months of inventory needed for a balanced market.
* National average rates accurate as of 5/14/24 from MortgageNewsDaily.com and are not advertised rates from Guaranteed Rate.
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