Demand for housing settled down in October after ramping up a month earlier, according to Redfin.
The Seattle-based company's Housing Demand Index declined 3.5% to a seasonally adjusted level of 100 in October. That level is equivalent to the historical average for the three-year period from January 2013 to December 2015, suggesting that demand in October was in line with recent average levels.
Additionally, the number of Redfin customers requesting home tours and the number of customers writing offers on homes both fell, by 3.7% and 5.9%, respectively. Those declines follow double-digit increases in September.
One factor driving the dip in demand is low supply — in October the number of homes listed for sale dropped 9.5%.
While demand appears to be cooling off, anecdotal evidence suggests that the election may be changing consumers' attitudes toward home buying and increasing demand for homes, Redfin noted.
"Since the election, I've been extremely busy helping clients make offers and get under contract," Niko Voutsinas, a real estate agent with Redfin, said in a news release Tuesday. "Some people are a little bit upset about mortgage rates increasing, but most are still pushing forward. Buyers feel the rates will only continue to rise, so they might as well try to buy now, especially before the frenetic spring market."
