By Aarthi Swaminathan | Realtor.com
The numbers: Sales of newly built homes in the U.S. inched up in January, even as mortgage rates rose.
U.S. new-home sales rose 1.5% to an annual rate of 661,000 in January, from a revised 651,000 in the prior month, the Commerce Department reported Monday.
The number is seasonally adjusted and refers to how many homes would be built over an entire year if builders continued at the same pace every month.
The pace fell short of expectations on Wall Street. Economists had forecast new-home sales to total 680,000 in January.
Mortgage rates rose to a six-week high at the end of January, according to data from Freddie Mac, which might...
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From our friends in KCM
If you’re thinking of selling your house this spring, now is the perfect time to start getting it ready. With the market gearing up for its busiest time of year, it’ll be important to make sure your house shines bright among the competition.
Here are some valuable tips you can use to get your house market-ready.
Declutter and Organize
First impressions matter, and if your house is a mess, that can easily turn off potential buyers. Before listing, take the time to declutter and organize each room. Decluttering is about more than just tidying up – it’s about creating a sense of space and openness that allows potential buyers to envision...
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By our friends in KCM
If you’re looking to buy a home, the recent downward trend in mortgage rates is good news because it helps with affordability. But there’s another way this benefits you – it may inspire more homeowners to put their houses up for sale.
The Mortgage Rate Lock-In Effect
Over the past year, one factor that’s really limited the options for your move is how few homes were on the market. That’s because many homeowners chose to delay their plans to sell once mortgage rates went up. An article from Freddie Mac explains:
“The lack of housing supply was partly driven by the rate lock-in effect. . . . With higher rates, the...
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From our friends in KCM
If you’ve been holding off on selling your house to make a move because you felt mortgage rates were too high, their recent downward trend is exciting news for you. Mortgage rates have descended since last October when they hit 7.79%. In fact, they’ve been below 7% for over a month now (see graph below):
And while they’re not going back to the 3% we saw during the ‘unicorn’ years, they are expected to continue to go down from where they are now in the near future. As Dean Baker, Senior Economist at the Center for Economic Research, explains:
“It also appears that mortgage rates are now falling again. They will almost certainly not...
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