The answer depends on whom you ask, says Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors.
With slides, charts and statistics, they said basically the same thing: home sales are too low, and prices and interest rates are too high. — But the pace of home price growth is expected to slow during the second half of the year, said Odeta Kushi, deputy chief economist for First American Financial Corp. An increase in for-sale inventory and a pullback in demand due to high prices and limited affordability will cause price growth “to decelerate,” Kushi said.— Yun predicted that U.S. home sales will rise in 2024 and 2025, reaching pre-COVID levels by 2026.
— Los Angeles/Orange County home shoppers lost $320,500 in buying power when mortgage rates more than doubled in 2022, said Zillow Chief Economist Skylar Olsen.