Redfin’s Tim Ellis published a Housing Market Update in which he notes the key housing market takeaways for 400+ U.S. Metro areas.

“The housing market’s temperature may be starting to drop by a degree or two. Both pending sales and asking prices began to decline or flatten in the four weeks ending May 30. It’s too soon to tell if these are early seasonal changes or the start of the post-pandemic cooldown we predicted earlier this year. The period in question includes the beginning of Memorial Day weekend, which this year marked a return to “normal” life. It may also have marked the beginning of a return to a more “normal” housing market. We should know more as we continue to track the latest data over the next few weeks.”

Indicators of last month’s history-making housing market:

• A record-high median home sale price of $355,558, up a record 24% year over year.
• A record high of 52% of homes sold for more than their list price, up from 26% the same period a year earlier.
• A record-high 102.0% average sale-to-list price ratio, which measures how close homes are selling to their asking prices. This means that the average home sold for 2.0% more than its asking price. A year ago, it sold for 1.5% below asking.
• A record low of 16 days on market for homes that sold during the period, down from 37 days from the same period in 2020.

Early indicators that the housing market may be starting to soften:

Each of the metrics highlighted in the following list set a new housing record going back at least as far as 2012, when Redfin’s data began.

• Pending home sales fell 3% from the four-week period ending May 2, compared to a 2% increase over the same period in 2019. Compared to 2020, they are up 38%.
• Asking prices fell $2,500 from the four-week period ending May 23 to a median of $354,975, up 11% from the same period in 2020.
• New listings of homes for sale were down 8% from the same period in 2019, and are down 5% from the 2021 high, which was set during the four-week period ending May 2. During the same period in 2019, new listings fell 2%.
• Active listings (the number of homes listed for sale at any point during the period) fell 37% from the same period in 2020.

Read the full article here which contains stats for home sale prices, asking prices, pending sales, and new listings among many other things. 

Realtor.com’s research team releases weekly housing trend key finding. This week they relayed, “The number of new sellers has climbed from a year ago in the last 6 weeks, yet another measure highlighting the stark change between this year and last year. Despite the influx of sellers, the number of homes actively for sale is still down and homes continue to sell quickly and for higher prices.”

A quick snap shot of the Weekly Housing Trends: 

• Median listing prices grew at 15.5 percent 
• New listings–a measure of sellers putting homes up for sale–were up 8 percent, making this the 6th consecutive week of increases over last year.
• Total active inventory remains 51 percent below this time last year.
• Time on market was 32 days faster than last year

Click here to read the entire article & see a comparison chart that compares March to May. 

“Home prices are up 27% year over year in seasonal towns” reports Dana Adams, of Redfin.

“The number of buyers who locked in mortgage rates for second homes soared 178% year over year in April, marking the 11th straight month of 80%-plus growth. The record increase should be taken in context: It is likely exaggerated because demand for second homes dropped 24% year over year last April, the month after the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. and real estate activity in the country nearly ground to a halt.

The rise in demand for second homes is more than twice the increase for primary homes, with the number of buyers who locked in mortgage rates for primary homes rising 78% year over year in April. That’s a record jump, too, but should also be taken in context, as demand for primary homes dropped last April due to the pandemic.”

Click here to read more about price increase in both seasonal and non-seasonal towns! 

US home prices jumped the most in 7 years in December as the housing-market boom charged into the new year, Case-Shiller says.

“The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller US National Home Price Index posted a 10.4% annualized increase in December, according to a Tuesday press release. The gain follows a 9.4% annualized climb in November and marks the biggest single-month leap in seven years seen by the index, a leading national dataset.”

“Still, the US housing market will likely thrive through 2021 as more forthcoming stimulus bolsters homebuying activity, Fitch analysts led by Suzanne Mistretta said in a February 16 note. The firm said it expects prices and mortgage volume to continue growing in 2021 due to consistently low borrowing costs and lasting supply constraints”

Read the full article here.

“From December 2020 to January 2021 the one-month appreciation, an annualized 7.5 percent rate, was the slowest recorded since August 2020. Historically, home prices have come under pressure during periods of economic stress as foreclosure sales and other distressed transactions add discounted properties into the inventory. During the Great Recession, monthly volume of sold properties that were considered distressed peaked at nearly 82,500 units (March 2011) and represented more than 43 percent of all sales that month. In contrast, January 2021 recorded the lowest ever number of distressed sales transactions, at 11,212 units. The tally represented just 4.9 percent of total sales for the month. This lack of distressed supply is a marked difference from prior periods of economic stress.”

Read the full Business Wire article here.