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The 2022 real estate market has picked up where the 2021 market left off. The market is as active as ever and the new year seems to have brought a renewed energy to the market after a brief December “breather” — reflected by the fact that the average days on market is back down to just over a month.
The number of active listings remains very low, even as new listings rose to a four-month high. One distinction that is important to make is that “sold listings” are for closed sales only — not pending sales. The “December Dip” will transfer into January’s numbers as those transactions are just now closing. Expect the number of sold listings to jump as February and March arrive due to the high number of currently pending listings.
January was also an important month in real estate because we finally saw interest rates begin to rise. This was something we expected to happen as the new year arrived. The Federal Reserve is raising interest rates to hopefully bring down some of the inflation we’ve seen over the last year. National Association of Realtors’ Chief Economist Lawrence Yun expects four interest rate hikes throughout 2022 — the one in January being the first.
While interest rates have increased, and will likely continue to increase each quarter, 3.59% is still historically low. In 2018, the average 30-year mortgage rate was 4.54%. People who are thinking about buying should start acting now to secure the lowest interest rate possible. Rising interest rates may slightly cool down the market, but we still expect it to be quite active with both motivated buyers and sellers.
For the third-straight month, the median list price skewed toward a higher-price point. Meanwhile the median sale price went down for the third-straight month, highlighting a desire for more entry-level and mid-priced homes.
