Birmingham weekly real estate update
As mortgage rates rise in concert with The Fed’s rate hikes this month, fears about the American housing market pricing out tens of millions of would-be homebuyers continue to fester.
The interest rate on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage is hovering around 6%.
And not only is it becoming more expensive to borrow money, but most real estate investors and builders have said they don’t anticipate housing prices will drop significantly but will instead grow at a slower rate.
There are signs this week, however, that the real estate market is shifting ever so slightly toward the buyer. May data shows home builders have started lowering prices for newly built homes as demand has cooled.
Home sales in May were down 8.6% year over year, according to the National Association of Realtors. It’s the fourth-straight month of declining activity. May also saw the median home price break $400,000 for the first time in history.
"We’re not going to see distressed sales, but we could see a decline in prices if the economy is hurt so bad that buyers just can’t afford the high prices that sellers want,” Redfin’s chief economist said this week in response to the release of housing data from May.
To help you stay current on the market, ZeroDown compiled a weekly real estate market report in Birmingham, AL metro area using data from Redfin. Statistics are as of the four weeks ending June 19, 2022. Metros with more than 50 homes sold during this time period were considered for metro-level rankings for each statistic.
