Zillow Updates 2022 Market Prediction

Zillow updated the market prediction for 2022, and there are housing market statistics to discuss. The United States has now reached the most unaffordable market it has seen in the last 15 years! This is measured by reviewing the affordability index. The affordable index looks at the percentage of income that goes towards housing. This percentage is now at 28%, the highest level since 2007. To put that into perspective, 30% is considered the upper threshold that should be avoided. As a nation on average, we are getting close to that number.

The average monthly mortgage payment now stands at $2,127 per month, which is a 36% increase year to date. We're only halfway through the year but the nation's housing…

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Housing Market Shift

Everyone wants to know how the start of the housing market shift will affect current home values. Inman News recently reported on the current real estate market shift. They also remind us that a housing market shift is not the same as a housing market collapse. Why is this housing market shift finally occurring?

First, the Fed has changed its interest rate policy on federal funds rates and quantitative easing. Record low-interest rates have increased by 2% this year. 

Second, Fannie Mae is projecting an 11% drop in home sales this month. The monthly home sales decrease happens because of a lack of affordability and supply. 

Thirdly, both homebuilding and home sales nationally are beginning to slow down. 

Matt’s…

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Housing Market in the U.S. | 2022

Real estate is at an inflection point. Harvard University just released its 2022 State of the Nation’s Market report for the housing industry. Topics that are discussed regarding the current housing market for the U.S. in 2022 include interest rates, housing stock, and the rapid increase in housing costs. The report also notes an inflection point in current real estate and the challenge of inventory, which is not believed to change any time soon.

Record Appreciation is Affecting the Housing Market

The report explains that we hit a record price appreciation in March, which was 20.6%, and apartment complexes are currently seeing a double-digit appreciation of 12%. With the price appreciation slowing down…

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Housing Prices Dropping

We finally have some good news to report for buyers! Nationally, nearly one out of five home sellers have dropped their listing price for the four weeks ending May 22nd. According to Redfin, this is the highest number of price drops since 2019. This is good news for buyers because sellers are having a harder time pushing up home values, which is evidenced by the increase in price drops.


Locally we're starting to see this in the higher price points, especially above $650,000. Before buyers get too excited though, it's important to note that 40% of homes nationally had a contract within one week and 55% within two weeks of all homes that sold. Homes also had a median national average of 15 days on market, which is down…

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May 2022 Housing Market Report


The market is finally starting to cool down nationally as the interest rates start to rise but the question is, “What is happening here locally in the Huntsville real estate market?” 

I was reading an article by the National Association of Realtors where they were stating that the volume, not sales prices, but the sales volume has actually decreased 3.2% month over month. I was also looking at a Realtor.com article where they're actually now predicting that home sales nationally decrease, not the actual sales price, but the volume decreases 6.7% over the next year. Other articles and other economists are predicting as much as 20% decline in sales nationally. Again, this is not home sales prices, but the number of…

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Fed Approves Record Rate Hike

As I've been telling you all, the Federal Reserve is going to continue to increase rates this year and boy did they ever last week. They had the highest interest rate hike that they've had in over 28 years of 0.75%. They did this because of a consumer price index and inflation numbers that they saw just a couple of weeks ago. 

After the Fed made this announcement on Wednesday, interest rates actually started to decrease from the high. The high actually got on Monday and Tuesday as high as in the mid 6% ranges but after Wednesday and then by the end of the week, they started to come down into the high 5%. The reason for that is the market already priced in that rate increase and they also priced in a little bit of…

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2022 Interest Rate Update

Interest rates are starting to not only level off but decline for the first time in 2022. How did this happen when the Federal Reserve just raised rates? For a little background, rates have increased 2% this year from 3.409% to as high as 5.593%. For the week ending May 20th, rates were down to 5.46% on an average 30 year mortgage, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Rates started increasing rapidly this year as the Fed backtracked on its previous federal funds rate hike plans. The federal funds rate  is the rate at which commercial banks borrow and lend to each other overnight. It’s not the same thing as a 30 year mortgage rate but it does impact mortgage rates.

The other thing that impacted rates was…

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Housing Supply Rebounding?

Active inventory of homes grew for the first time since 2019, so what does this mean for the housing market? Realtor.com recently reported that the weekly inventory was up slightly year over year. The number is still rounded down to about 0%, but this is still a good sign with three straight years of declining inventory.

According to this chart, it shows approximately 409,000 active homes across the U.S. which is up from a low of 376,000 active homes that we had in February. We're still down approximately 70% over the past four years with still approximately two weeks worth of supply locally. This is much lower than a balanced market of four to six months worth of supply.

Average mortgage rates have risen…

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Q1 & April 2022 Huntsville Housing Market Report

The data is in for the Q1 and April 2022 Huntsville Housing Market Report. The market continues to be red hot overall but we are starting to see a more balanced market in some of the higher price ranges.

The median pending sales price for Q1 came in at $322,218, which is up 21.6% and the average days on market was only 11 days for Q1. There also continues to be an inventory challenge in this market due to an approximate 5.5 million home deficit nationwide.

To give you some perspective on 11 days, a balanced market is actually considered to be four to six months worth of supply, anything less than four months is considered a seller's market. So at 11 days, we are an extreme and unhealthy…

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First Time Homebuyer Struggles

Being a first time homebuyer just got tougher! Bidding wars, understanding the home inspection reports, and closing costs are only a few of the issues first time homebuyers face. The percentage of first time home buyers successfully winning homes is down over 20% from approximately 50% in the market in 2010 all the way down to 27% in 2022. The question is, "Why is this percentage down so much and what can we do to address it?"

Homeownership is the most proven way to build wealth in this country. Homeowners have an average net worth that is 40x that of renters; $255,000 versus only $5,800. Plus, homeowners tend to be more involved in their community than renters which benefits the whole community more. 

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