“A year ago, sellers had trouble understanding why they weren’t getting $20,000 over the list price like their neighbor did during the pandemic homebuying boom. Now, they understand that to sell their home, they need to price it fairly and, in some cases, offer the buyer concessions like money toward closing costs or mortgage-rate buydowns,” said Stein.
In November, the median US home sale price was $408,732, a 3.7% increase year-over-year and a 1.1% decrease month-over-month. Annual home price growth reverted back to the 2-7% range that it had previously been at prior to the pandemic. Buyers competing for a limited supply of homes has partially contributed to the rise in prices.
Closed sales only saw a 0.2% increase on a seasonally adjusted basis month-over-month and fell 5.4% year-over-year, partly because of deals falling through at the last minute. Around 45,000 US home-purchase agreements were canceled in November, which equated to 16.9% of homes going under contract.
“While some buyers and sellers have come to terms with today’s economic uncertainty, that same uncertainty is causing many of them to get cold feet,” said Stein, noting that housing affordability continues to be strained.
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