The Housing Market is Already Heating Up Going into 2022!

The current housing market is still very active. We do see less multiple offers, however, in high demand areas, homes are still selling fast and above the asking prices. The rental market has been very active since early spring of 2021 and is staying strong through the fall. It’s a great time to buy investment properties. Current investment home mortgage 30 year fix rate of 3.6% is still much lower than its pre-pandemic rate of 4.5%. Working in the broad areas especially in northern Virginia, I can testify that the market is already heating up!

Jobless claims fell to a Pandemic low of $2.1M by Oct 31. Private companies added 571,000 jobs, beating the 395,000 Dow Jones estimate. Leisure and hospitality led the way with 185,000 new positions. — Possibly fewer homeowners are forced to sell as jobs continue to return.

Zillow announced this week that it will be exiting Offers, the business it started in December 2019 to buy and flip homes. This move will lay-off 25% of its employees. — Unpredictable market events & inaccurate Zillow estimate? Zillow now needs to offload its remaining 7000 homes!

Purchase Mortgage applications dropped by 9% from a year ago for October. Refinance applications dropped 33% from last year! — High prices, higher interest rates and low inventory, but current application levels still point to a healthy housing market and demand. We expect to see a very active market again in early spring 2022.

Food prices are up by 5.3% year-over-year through October. The cost of eating out at a restaurant is about 4.7% higher than it was at this time last year, while grocery store and supermarket purchases are 5.3% higher than a year ago. To put that into perspective, during the decade prior to the start of the pandemic, the average annual increase in grocery store and supermarket purchases was only 1.3%. Overall, prices across the board are up 6.2% this year, the highest level since 1990. —Labor shortage, supply chain disruptions, and other factors are contributing to food price inflation. Higher demand for food since the pandemic is also driving price increases.

The Federal Reserve began reducing the pace of its monthly asset purchases. There is a monthly reduction of $10 billion in Treasury and $5 billion in mortgage-backed securities. Officials at the October meeting expressed their concern regarding inflation, saying it could last longer than they currently assumed. — Home mortgage rates are not absolutely related to the Fed’s rate, however, somehow they are influenced by it. Home mortgage rates might stay around the current level for the first half of 2022.

If you are thinking of buying or selling your home now or in early 2022 and need expert advice, feel free to reach out to me so I can give you expert unsolicited guidance for all your Real Estate needs and questions. Contact me anytime at 703-677-0709.