Housing markets

The National Association of Realtors index of contract signings to purchase previously owned homes decreased 4.6% last month, according to data released Wednesday.

The increased limit on the size of the mortgages the government-sponsored enterprises will be able to buy reflects the year-over-year change in home prices.

It was the third straight decline for the seasonally adjusted measure of prices in 20 large U.S. cities, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index. 

"This is Han Solo in carbonite: This is a market that could stay frozen for quite some time," said Benjamin Keys, a real estate professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

Prospective borrowers are still looking at inland hotspots but coastal cities will make a comeback in the next 12 to 24 months with favorable acquisition costs and inventory, according to Guaranteed Rate's top-ranked loan officer.

Living next to an ALDI's, Trader Joes or Whole Foods increases home price appreciation, according to an Attom report.

Rising mortgage rates also led to the highest level of listing price reductions as well as the largest annual drop in pending home sales, Redfin found.

Contract closings decreased 5.9% to an annualized pace of 4.43 million last month, according to the National Association of Realtors

The decline in loan activity and softening prices also helped drive down builder sentiment for the 11th month in a row.

Applications to build, a proxy for future construction, fell to an annualized 1.53 million units, as single-family family permits fell to early pandemic levels.

The coming months are likely to see greater focus on single-family rentals, reduced credit availability and potential new competitors entering the market.

Home prices in many areas have peaked and the equity cushion that has bolstered loan performance is starting to erode, but some think damage will be limited.

JPMorgan Chase's asset-management arm entered into a deal to acquire more than $1 billion of single-family rentals, a sign that choppy markets haven't scared investors away from suburban housing.

More than 30 million homes in the U.S. are mortgage-free, with Florida — which has the highest proportion of retirees — the state with the biggest percentage of free and clear residences, suggesting it's better shielded from a decline in real estate prices.

Choices of which homes are used for comparisons play a major role in disparate home valuations for Black and white homeowners, according to studies recently released by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition and academic researchers.

But costs are still elevated annually in double-digit ranges for 46% of markets, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Redfin Corp. is shuttering its iBuying business and laying off workers for the second time in almost five months, as the likelihood of a prolonged U.S. housing slowdown continues to ripple through the industry.

It came as a surprise to many housing experts that Asian, Black and Hispanic homeownership rates all jumped last year by more than 2 percentage points, according to quarterly Census Bureau data.

The $1.3 trillion decline was the largest quarterly drop in dollar volume and the biggest falloff on a percentage basis since 2009, according to Black Knight.

The limit for high-cost areas for 2023, 50 percent above the baseline limit, would be approximately $1.08 million, writes a former principal economist with the Federal Housing Finance Agency.