NEWS July 20, 2023
Seller
Whether you're contemplating buying or selling a house these days, it's likely you're a baby boomer — or are financially supported by one.
At $436,800, the median home sale price in the U.S. remains significantly higher than the $329,000 average price seen in the quarter just before the late winter 2020 period, when the Covid-19 pandemic struck.
And it continues to inch higher: The monthly S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller housing market index showed relative price increases for February, March, and April.
“The ongoing recovery in home prices is broadly based,” Craig Lazzara, managing director at S&P DJI, said in a release. All 20 major metro markets logged monthly price gains in April, and 12 markets showed price acceleration, the report found.
With affordability at near-record lows and inventory still very limited, many buyers, especially first-timers, will continue to find the market challenging for the foreseeable future, experts say.
Mortgage interest rates now hover around 7%. As a result, the median monthly payment (principal and interest) a home buyer can now expect to pay is nearly $2,000, according to the National Association of Realtors — almost double the 2020 figure.
Buyers need to earn more money, too. An income of about $95,000 per year is needed to qualify for a 30-year mortgage with a 20% down payment (the NAR's calculations are based on a slightly lower estimate of the current median home value).
"There will be no return to the 3% rates we had during the pandemic," Bright MLS chief economist Lisa Sturtevant said in a statement Thursday. "Homebuyers have had to accept the ‘new normal’ of rates around 6.5% or even a little higher."
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