Key Takeaways
- Pending home sales danced the downward tango, dropping a significant 4.9% between December and January. Guess the new year came with the motivation to make some buyers broke!
- Even the sands of time couldn’t stop this sales slide, as the drop for the year was a cringe-worthy 8.8%. That’s right folks, more plummeting than a clumsy pigeon!
- This means less dough in the wallets of home sellers, and more homes lounging around, waiting for their perfect match. The bachelor pad edition, anyone?
Hot Take
Can the real estate market take a hint? It seems like potential buyers decided to keep their resolutions of saving money in 2021 after a wild 2020. They’re keeping their pennies close to their pockets and steering clear of signing on that dreaded dotted line. It’s a buyers’ market now, with plenty of houses getting tired of playing hard to get and desperate to find their happily-ever-after homeowners. But when buyers decide to play coy, the result is an 8.8% tumble for the year. Now, that’s more fall than we saw in leaves throughout last autumn!
Still, with these dwindling sales, one person’s loss is another’s gain, right? So, if you’re hunting for a house, now’s the time to bag a bargain! But remember folks, the early bird catches not only the worm, but the best-priced suburban home too.
So what are you waiting for? Dust off that six-figure bank balance and give one of those lonely houses a new lease on life. Or, you know, continue camping out in your parents’ basement. The cracks in the real estate market are showing, and while it isn’t an HGTV-worthy fixer-upper situation yet, it certainly makes for an interesting subplot in the financial soap opera that is 2021.
Original article: https://www.inman.com/2024/02/29/pending-home-sales-dropped-in-january-as-mortgage-rates-rose/
