As nominal house prices have soared over the last year, many potential first-time home buyers may be reconsidering whether to buy or to continue renting. Weighing the monthly cost of renting versus owning a home is a key factor in determining if it makes financial sense to buy a home. This update to a 2019 analysis, which found that owning was ... Read More ›

In the final month of 2020, the market potential for existing-home sales reached its highest point since 2007, rising to a 6.18 million seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) of sales. While the winter months are traditionally real estate’s slow season, the housing market had one more surprise for us in 2020 as our measure of the market ... Read More ›

The housing market prior to the pandemic could have been characterized as a sellers’ market, with a shortage of supply relative to demand. With the current supply of homes for sale even tighter relative to demand, it can only be characterized as a super-sellers’ market today. The pandemic has intensified a sense of home as refuge and falling ... Read More ›

In spite of the record-setting spike in unemployment at the outset of the pandemic, foreclosure activity in 2020 has plunged to an all-time low. The fiscal stimulus and foreclosure moratorium clearly made a difference, helping thousands of homeowners keep their homes. At the peak in early June, 8.6 percent of all mortgage loans were in ... Read More ›

The housing market continues to impress, even as it enters the colder months, which is traditionally real estate’s slow season. After falling to a near-decade low in May due to pandemic-driven pressures, existing-home sales hit a 14-year high in October. In November, our measure of the market potential for existing-home sales increased 10 percent, ... Read More ›

As the housing market has recovered from the initial impacts of the pandemic, nominal house price appreciation has soared, but affordability actually improved until recently due to the house-buying power benefit from historically low mortgage rates. However, for the second month in a row, the Real House Price Index (RHPI) increased, indicating ... Read More ›