May 9th 2022 Market Update

So if you're thinking about getting into the real estate market, whether buying or selling a home in 2022, there are three factors and data points that you need to be familiar with. Number one, interest rates. Interest rates reached historic 30 year lows in 2021, and a lot of that is because the Federal Reserve has been buying back bonds and pumping money into the system to keep rates low so that people keep spending money. They have said they are going to start tapering their bond buyback program in March of 2022 and they plan on raising rates three times throughout the year. So look for interest rates to get back to some more historical norms closer to 4% by year end.

What does that mean for you? If you are considering buying a home in 2022, it is to your advantage to buy a home earlier in the year because affordability will become more of a problem in the latter half of 2022. Supply. You keep hearing that it's a seller's market. It's a seller's market that is going to continue through 2022.

We are actually short 4 million homes across the country. So what does that mean? That means there are 4 million more buyers in the market than there are available properties. Until that changes, expect more of the same. Listings are going to be highly competitive.

Pricing is going to be high, terms are going to be in the seller's favor know that going into it, that not very much is going to change between now and the market of 2021. Appreciation. Last year saw historical appreciation in property pricing. Nationally, we saw a rise of 18.5%. Now, no economists are really planning on seeing that big of an appreciation jump in 2022, but they are still planning to see anywhere between six to to 7% appreciation, which is double the historical form.

So what does that mean for you? It means the longer that you wait, the more money you are going to pay in interest, the more money you are going to pay for the house. I would not expect a slew of seller inventory to come to the market in 2022. So what does this recap really say? Expect more like it was in 2021.