State of the housing market: September 2022

PayProp’s Property Management Market Report highlights key housing trends with our monthly data roundup. *

The US real estate sector has experienced record-highs all throughout the first half of the year. But as the blazing summer comes to a close, both the temperature and the housing market could finally start cooling.

• According to the National Association of Realtors, the median existing single-family home sales price descended from $410,600 in July to $396,300 in August. ‍
• In turn, HouseCanary reports that the average national rent at the end of the first half of 2022 was $2,495.00. That’s a 13.4% growth from the same time last year. Specifically, one-bedroom rentals saw a 7.4% year-over-year increase in price, while two-bedrooms increased by 11.4%, and three-bedroom rentals rose by 14.8% – the highest year-over-year price change for any rental, regardless of number of bedrooms.
• Supply in the single-family rental market also swelled, adding on 57.8% YoY with 43,891 new listings. This reflects the country’s attempt to meet burgeoning demand for rental properties, as would-be homeowners are priced out of the housing market. However, even with these additional listings, inventory remains low. The soaring rent and house prices referred to above can likely be attributed to this. 
• In keeping with low stock levels, the national rental vacancy rate declined from 6.2% in Q2 2021 to 5.6% in Q2 2022. The 0.8% homeowner vacancy rate remains in line with last year’s rates.
• In such a tight market, all eyes will be on construction to remedy the shortfall of affordable accommodation. Instead, activity has slowed down, partially because many builders are discouraged by current and future sales trends. According to the National Association of Home Builders, builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes dropped six points to 49 in August. Ongoing shortages and price hikes of materials have also contributed to this development lull. As a result, there were only 935,000 single-family housing starts in August, which is 3.4% more than in July, but 8.9% less than the 1,019,000 starts in June.

* Our curated overview features key housing market indicators, with an emphasis on the single-family rental market, leveraged from the most recent data available from credible sources such as the US Census Bureau and HouseCanary, a real estate brokerage specializing in valuations.

More housing market headlines

Rent growth moderates for SFR sector – GlobeSt.com

As housing market cools, homebuyers regain leverage – The Associated Press

More housing is coming – but the national shortage will persist – Stateline