Until the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates and housing supply catches up with demand, home sale and rent prices will likely remain high for the foreseeable future.
- The national median list price continued to increase seasonally from $424,900 in March to $430,000 in April, according to Realtor.com.
- The site also reports a 9% month-over-month increase in newly listed homes, from 395,536 in March to 432,028 in April, as well as a 12.2% increase year over year.
- Zumper continues to report stable annual rental rates, with one-bedroom rents down 0.6% to $1,486 and two-bedrooms up just 0.1% to $1,843. Despite this cooling, the national one-bedroom rent remains nearly $250 higher than it was in 2021.
- As Zumper CEO Anthemos Georgiades explains, “With Class A buildings marketing concessions that include up to three months of free rent, free parking, and waived deposits and application fees, this, in turn, puts pressure on Class B and C buildings to price competitively as well in order to attract tenants.”
- 59 of Zumper’s top 100 cities saw an increase in rental prices from the previous month, while 28 fell and 13 reported no change.
- Even as inventory increases nationwide, it is still trailing behind demand, suggesting that any changes to average rents for the rest of the year will remain fairly modest.
- Record-high mortgage rates promptly reversed the uptrend in builder confidence recorded in the past couple of months, resulting in a six-point drop to 45 in May, reports The National Association of Home Builders.
- “We are also concerned about the recent code rules that require HUD and USDA to insure mortgages for new single-family homes only if they are built to the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code,” said NAHB Chairman Carl Harris.
- The NAHB believes the new rule will curb home construction and “add up to $31,000 to the price of a new home,” while environmental experts predict households in northern and mountainous states will “save over $18,000 on their housing and energy bills over a 30-year mortgage.”
- Single‐family housing starts in April reached 1,031,000 – 0.4% below the revised March figure of 1,035,000.
More rental market headlines
HUD raises max deductibles for wind and named storm coverage – Multifamily Dive
Property Management Forum highlights rent control, tenant protections, insurance challenges – NAR
Making sense of squatters’ rights as a property manager – PayProp
