Bidding wars increase as home listings at record low

Presidents Day weekend marks the unofficial start of the spring housing market, but if you’re looking to get in this year, hold onto your wallet. Bidding wars are off the charts, even as home prices are rising rapidly.

The primary reason longtime home searchers haven’t bought a house yet is because they keep getting outbid. About 40% of potential buyers cited that in a new survey by the National Association of Home Builders. The reasons are flipped from a year earlier, when 44% said unaffordable prices were the biggest reason they hadn’t bought yet, and 19% cited getting outbid.

Well over half of all buyers, 56%, faced bidding wars on their offers in January, according to a Redfin survey. That is up from 52% in December. More than half of homes are now going under contract in less than two weeks.

“With so few new listings hitting the market, I expect bidding wars to become more common and involve even more potential buyers as we head into the spring homebuying season,” said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin.

She advises buyers to be ready to go see properties the moment they hit the market and to get preapproved for a mortgage.

“But know when to back away if the price escalates more than you’re willing to pay,” Fairweather added.

Competition is fierce across the nation, but worst in Salt Lake City, where 9 out of 10 offers faced competition, according to Redfin’s survey of 24 major markets. It was followed by San Diego (78.9%), the Bay Area (77.1%), Denver (73.9%) and Seattle (73.8%).

The problem is supply, or lack thereof — record low supply. Sudden strong demand, driven by the stay-at-home culture of the Covid pandemic, swiftly smacked into already low inventory, due to lackluster homebuilding. Record-low mortgage rates only fueled demand even more.

Paul Legere is a buyer’s agent with the Joel Nelson Group in Washington, D.C. He says his job is only getting tougher.

“The low cost of money now has buyers able to be more aggressive and willing to overpay for properties. As a buyer’s agent, tasked with trying to help clients find value, that piece of the equation is nearly impossible to do,” said Legere. “It is a constant struggle and scramble to find desirable targets.”

Sellers have also pulled back, not wanting to go through the ordeal of putting their homes on the market during Covid. The number of newly listed homes in January was down 29% year over year, pushing the total inventory down 47%, according to realtor.com.

Home prices had appreciated at a double-digit rate each week for 26 straight weeks leading into January. The median listing price for a home was up nearly 13% compared with January 2020.

“Lower mortgage rates are making monthly payments for higher priced homes more manageable,” said realtor.com’s chief economist, Danielle Hale. “But finding a home that checks the right boxes amid limited supply, and saving up for the larger down payment needed with higher home prices, continue to be challenging, especially for first-time home buyers who haven’t accumulated home equity as prices have gone up.”

~Diana Click, CNBC

Real Estate Market gains more in 2020 than any year since 2005

After a record-setting year of home sales in 2020, the housing market still shows no sign of cooling off.

U.S. housing gained about $2.5 trillion in value in 2020 — the most in a single year since 2005, according to a new Zillow analysis. The full stock of U.S. housing is now worth $36.2 trillion.

Strong demand drove intense competition among buyers, causing homes to fly off the market at the fastest pace Zillow has recorded and pushing prices higher. 

Housing demand was already strong coming into the year with the large Millennial generation aging into prime first-time home-buying age and mortgage rates hovering near record lows. The widespread shift to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic prompted many buyers to re-evaluate their housing options and supercharged demand. 

While many potential buyers faced unprecedented economic hardship because of the pandemic, others with stable income were eager to enter the housing market.

Zillow expects 2021 to be even stronger, possibly exceeding last year’s $2.5 trillion gain. “Builder confidence, perhaps in reaction to the boosted demand, hit record highs and more homes are being built as a result,” said Zillow economist Treh Manhertz. “Add that together and you see why the housing market gained more than in any year since the Great Recession.”

According to the CoreLogic Buyer/Seller Market Indicator, which measures the ratio between sold price and list price, buyer competition reached a new peak nationally in October and November when the ratio climbed to 0.996 – the highest level since 2008, when the data series began. 

The high indicator suggests sellers were generally getting their asking price. With buyer demand continuing to outpace the previous year’s levels amid historically lowest inventory of for-sale homes, the pressure on home prices is expected to fuel home price growth in the first half of 2021.

More than a fifth (21.4%) of the nation’s housing value resides in California, according to Zillow. Homes in California are worth a cumulative $7.8 trillion, more than the next three states combined, and the state boasts four of the 10 metro areas with the highest total housing value — Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose and San Diego. 

Zillow found that over the past decade, the total value of the housing stock has more than doubled in six states. 

Idaho leads the way, gaining 149% since 2011. Most of that growth comes from the Boise metro, where the total housing stock has more than tripled in value during that time, the most of any of the 100 largest U.S. metros. Nevada (146.3%), Utah (126.2%), Arizona (116.5%), Colorado (111.6%) and Washington (108%) also saw their total housing market value double over the past decade.

Although the pandemic continues to upend the housing market in many ways, Selma Hepp, deputy chief economist at data analytics provider CoreLogic, predicts competition among buyers will continue to drive home prices up.

“The housing market continued to hold stronger than expected throughout the last months of 2020 and despite increases in infection rates across the country,” she said. “With mortgage rates steadily falling through the end of the year and buyers realizing that the pandemic is still far from over, robust demand was not fazed by traditional seasonal slowdown. And given that we are unsure of when social interaction will be safe again, homebuyers will continue to compete for fewer and fewer homes available for sale, which will drive home prices higher.”

~ Brenda Richardson