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"Are buyers already coming back into the housing market?"

Austin Business Journal reports, "since the start of the new year, there's indications buyers may be — albeit slowly — reentering the housing market, owing in part to mortgage rates that've stabilized since 2022's volatility.

Redfin Corp. (Nasdaq: RDFN) found while pending home sales fell 26% year over year during the four weeks ending Jan. 22, that was the smallest drop in more than three months, and that metric had began rising on a month-over-month basis since December.

Separately, home tours and requests for service for Redfin remain down 23% and 27% respectively from a year prior, but both are an improvement from a November trough of that activity being down 40%.

Pending home sales increased in December for the first time since May 2022,…

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"Zillow says Austin’s housing market is now ‘ice cold,’ Austin Board of Realtors says no way"

KXAN Austin writes, "just days after the Austin Board of Realtors said the local housing market is starting to “rebalance,” Zillow has released a much harsher outlook: the Austin market is now “ice cold.”

The characterization comes as Zillow released its market report for December 2022.

The report shows homes in the Austin area are spending a median of 68 days on the market, more than in any other major metro nationwide. Back in December 2021, Zillow reported homes in the area were on the market for a median of 22 days.

Another metric in the report shows homes aren’t selling for as much as they used to. In November, just 11% of listings sold for higher than the asking price, down from 47% a year before.

That may be leading some homeowners…

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"Rents Are Still Rising—but Not By Much. Are the Steep Hikes Finally Over?"

Realtor.com writes, "the rent may still be too damn high, but at least it isn’t skyrocketing anymore.

That’s the message from the Realtor.com® monthly rental report, which shows a welcome cooling-off after the craziness of the COVID-19 pandemic period.

Rental prices in the largest metropolitan areas across the country rose 11.6% for the full year in 2022 but downshifted steadily throughout the year. By December, prices were only 3.2% higher, compared with the same month a year earlier.

Nationally, the median monthly rent was $1,712 in December—down $69 from the peak in July.

However, the national numbers mask enormous differences in metros around the country, where the locations people are moving to and from are reversing. And instead of…

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"2022 was another record year for Austin-area housing but recent inventory rise provides 'breathing room'"

Austin Business Journal writes, "the Austin metro housing market set another sale price record in 2022 — but prices ended the year trending down, another sign of continued cooling and a possible return to more normal conditions.

The average median sale price of a home was $503,000 last year, an 11% increase from 2021, according to the latest data from the Austin Board of Realtors.

However, after peaking at $550,000 in April and May, prices have been steadily retreating — hitting $457,426 in December, a 3% year-over-year decrease and nearly $100,000 less than in the spring.

Some of that decline is likely tied to the time of year, as home sales typically slow in the winter months. But even that seasonality would be a welcome return after a…

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"Homes in Austin metro are taking longer to sell than they have in more than a decade"

KXAN reports, "the Austin housing market has “shifted and started to rebalance,” with homes now spending an average of more than two months on the market.

The Austin Board of Realtors President Ashley Jackson made the comments in the December edition of the board’s monthly housing market report, released Wednesday.

“December tells us a lot about how the market has shifted and started to rebalance as there was a sales price drop and a staggering increase in how long homes take to sell,” Jackson said.

Homes that sold in December spent an average of 73 days on the market, almost triple the average from a year ago. The average is the highest since March 2012 — almost 11 years ago — when homes took on average 83 days to sell, according to ABoR…

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"Real Estate CEOs, Economists & Other Experts Predict a “Less Crazy” Housing Market in 2023, But Expect Any Improvements to be Gradual"

Yahoo Finance writes, "while there is no clear consensus about what will happen to mortgage rates and home sales in 2023, the real estate experts from organizations like the Mortgage Bankers Association, Zillow, Taylor Morrison, and others surveyed in Point’s 2023 Real Estate Expert Survey agree 2023 will likely bring less volatility to the real estate market. But any improvement will be slow.

Point asked experts about where mortgage rates will land this year; what will happen to existing-home sales; and what advice they would give home buyers and sellers.

Key findings include:

• About three-quarters of the respondents expect the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate to stay below 7% in June 2023. By December, every respondent believes rates…

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"Mortgage Demand Soars 28% as Rates Dip Slightly"

Realtor.com writes, "The numbers: A dip in mortgage rates prompted mortgage demand to rise a seasonally adjusted 27.9%

As mortgage rates dropped across the board, demand for both purchases and refinancing increased. That pushed the market composite index up, a measure of mortgage application volume, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said on Wednesday.

The market index rose to 238.7 for the week ending Jan. 13, up 27.9% from a week earlier. A year ago, the index stood at 593.7.

Key details: The refinance index jumped 34.2% in the past week, but was down 81% compared to a year ago.

The purchase index—which measures mortgage applications for the purchase of a home—rose by 24.7% from last week.

Mortgage rates fell across the board.

…

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"Mortgage rates drop again, creating opportunity for homebuyers: Freddie Mac"

Fox Business reports, "mortgage rates dropped back down again last week and even though it was slight, the decrease had an impact on homebuyer demand, according to Freddie Mac.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell to 6.33% for the week ending Jan. 12, according to Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey. This was a decrease from the previous week when it averaged 6.48% but remains significantly higher than last year when it was 3.45%.

The average rate for a 15-year mortgage was 5.52% last week, down from 5.73% the week before and up from 2.62% last year.  

Mortgage rates have fluctuated in the 6% to 7% range since September, Freddie Mac's data shows. Even though the changes are incremental from week-to-week, the…

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"Home Price Growth Is Cooling Fast—Does It Spell a Big Break for Homebuyers This Year?"

Realtor.com writes, "December brought good tidings to homebuyers in the real estate market.

Nationally, median home list prices dropped about 11% from their peak over the summer to hit $400,000 in December, according to a recent Realtor.com® report. While prices were still up by about 8.4% year over year in December, this was the first time in a year that they rose by only single digits.

In another holiday gift for home shoppers, the number of properties for sale nationally shot up more than 50% compared with a year ago. And homes are sitting on the market for longer, giving buyers an opportunity to think about whether this is the right home for them instead of having to put in an offer on the spot.

Mortgage interest rates even dipped from…

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"Expert Economist Predictions For The Housing Market In 2023: Will Home Prices Decrease?"

Yahoo Finance reports, "the Federal Reserve was under pressure to start its roughly one-year-long journey to control inflation by raising interest rates as a result of stubbornly high costs during 2022.

The housing market has been under tremendous pressure as a result of those month-over-month rises in interest rates because mortgage rates rise in tandem with each Fed rate increase.

The Fed increased borrowing costs, which discouraged prospective homebuyers; in November, sales of new single-family homes fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 640,000, down from 756,000 the year before.

It wasn’t just interest rates.

According to a quarterly study released by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the median price of a…

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