2024 Projections for Real Estate
Anya’s Market Bites:
2024 Projections for Real Estate!
National Level:
National Association of Realtors (NAR) predicts 4.71 million existing-home sales in 2024, up 13.5% from 4.1 million anticipated in 2023. NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun forecasts that the housing market is expected to grow.
Annual median home prices are expected to remain largely unchanged at the national level in 2024, for the second straight year, modestly improving affordability from rising income.
Yun expects rent prices to calm down further in 2024, which will hold down the consumer price index. He predicts foreclosure rates will stay at historically low levels in 2024, comprising less than 1% of all mortgages.
Regarding interest rates, after eclipsing 8% in late 2023, he expects the 30-year fixed mortgage rate to average 6.1% to 6.3% and that the Fed will cut rates four times – calming inflationary conditions – in response to slower economic activity. Yun predicts that a drop in rates will draw more buyers back into the market. And because sellers can’t wait forever for today’s rates to match what they now pay on their current mortgage, many who have been waiting to move will put their homes up for sale. “Over the past two years, people’s lives have changed. Seven million newborn babies. Three million marriages. … Seven million Americans have turned 65,” he said. “People are going to begin to say, ‘You know, life goes on. I don’t want to give up my 3% mortgage rate, but I’m in need of a larger house.’ ”
California:
The California housing market will rebound in 2024 as mortgage rates ebb.
Existing, single-family home sales are forecast to total 327,100 units in 2024, an increase of 22.9 percent from 2023’s projected pace of 266,200.
California’s median home price is forecast to climb 6.2 percent to $860,300 in 2024, following a projected 1.5 percent decrease to $810,000 in 2023 from 20
Housing affordability* is expected to remain flat at 17 percent next year from a projected 17 percent in 2023.
