While Omicron is likely going to have a significant short-term impact on the market, I am getting more convinced that 2022 will bring another year of material home price growth. Waiting for that price dip to find your Florida home seems riskier than ever.
Sorry, I don’t have one. That said, I am not sure even the best forecaster knows what next year will bring us in terms of changes in housing prices. I don’t recall ever going into a year where forecasts have been as varied as they are now (see below).
According to CoreLogic, home prices nationwide increased year over year by 18% in September 2021 compared with September 2020. On a month-over-month basis, home prices increased by 1.1% in September 2021 compared with August 2021. In Florida, we saw even more annualized growth, with year over year prices going up by 20%.
While I was happy to see Zillow officially announce that is getting out of the home buying business, it is unfortunate that it will result in a reduction in their employees. The reason I felt good about another iBuyer dropping out of the market is that it should continue to contribute to a rebalancing of supply and demand.
We saw mortgage interest rates continue to trend higher in the last 30 days. The recent change will cost new borrowers another $7.50 per month for every $100,000 borrowed. Average U.S. rates for 30-year fixed rate mortgages were at 3.01% as of this week. Last month at this time, they were sitting at 2.87%. Of course, both are historically low.