During the four-week period that ended May 8, the typical home for sale found a buyer in 15 days, according to Redfin. That’s the fastest pace on record.
Pending sales fell 6 percent, the largest year-over-year decline since June 2020. Buyers who haven’t been priced out by skyrocketing housing costs have been rushing to snag homes before they become even more expensive. The typical homebuyer’s monthly mortgage payment is now $2,427, a record high and up 44 percent year-over-year.
“Rising mortgage rates have taken a notable bite out of demand,” Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather said in a release. “But still, homebuyers who remain in the market are facing stiff competition, especially for the most desirable homes. Given the lack of homes for sale, it would take a much larger drop in demand for buyers to really feel like the market has truly turned in their favor.”
The share of homes for sale with price drops shot up to a seven-month high of 16 percent as early-stage homebuying demand fell 7 percent, the largest annual decline since April 2020, according to Redfin.
“We are seeing more price drops in recent weeks and homebuyers are starting to find some relief from competition,” Salt Lake City Redfin real estate agent Rin Barrett said. “People who have been looking for a long time and were consistently getting beat out by other buyers are starting to get their offers accepted. They may be settling for a home that’s not in an ideal location or needs some work, but they’re happy because a few months ago even those seemed impossible to win. However, desirable homes in prime locations are still selling fast and for a premium, with no apparent slowdown so far.”
The seasonally adjusted Redfin Homebuyer Demand Index, a measure of requests for home tours and other home-buying services, was down 7 percent year-over-year. It dropped 19 percent in the past four weeks, compared with an 11 percent decrease during the same period last year.
Mortgage purchase applications were down 8 percent from a year earlier. For the week ending May 12, 30-year mortgage rates increased to 5.3 percent, the highest level since June 2009.
The median home sale price was up 17 percent year-over-year, the biggest increase since August, to a record $397,356. The median asking price of newly listed homes increased 17 percent year-over-year to $411,350, a new all-time high.
A record 57 percent of homes sold above list price, up from 48 percent a year earlier.
The average sale-to-list price ratio, which measures how close homes are selling to their asking prices, rose to an all-time high of 102.8 percent, up from 101.3 percent a year earlier. In other words, the average home sold for 2.8 percent above its asking price.