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Real Estate
Home Sales Keep Up ‘Momentum’
While inventory rises
The housing market continued to shake off sluggish sales in November 2024 as sales volumes trended up. Meanwhile, home prices remain near record highs, a new (NAR) shows.
The median home-sale price marked the highest median on record for the month of November, NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said, and was only slightly off from June’s all-time high. Sales of existing homes rose 4.8 percent from a year ago.
“Home sales momentum is building,” Yun said in a statement. “More buyers have entered the market as the economy continues to add jobs, housing inventory grows compared to a year ago, and consumers get used to a new normal of mortgage rates between 6 percent and 7 percent.”
With home prices historically high, remain daunting for homebuyers. Lower mortgage rates would relieve some of that pain — but they also could lure more buyers into the market, and therefore cause upward pressure on prices.
The sharp rise in mortgage rates since the pandemic has . However, Yun expects that “lock-in effect” to fade with the passage of time and an eventual decline in rates.
