Weekly Special | February 10, 2020

2020 Starts Off With A Bang

Year over year home sales rose 18% higher in January when compared to January 2019 home sales. This means we’ve seen gains for six straight months and 9 of the past 12 months.

The graph above shows year over year homes sales, which is a method of tracking change in the market. The green vertical lines occur when we record more home sales in a month than we did for that same month in the prior year. In a similar manner, the red vertical lines show declines.

The hot housing market has been fueled by historically-low mortgage interest rates which makes buyers’ purchasing power stronger (you can buy more home w/o higher payment).

Forward Looking Concerns My forecast for the year has not changed, even in light of an excellent first month of the year.

While rates remain low, so too is the inventory of homes for sale.

We either need more sellers to enter the market, more builders to provide inventory, or we are going to see prices sky-rocket and negate the positive impact of low mortgage interest rates.

The original one-page Weekly Special PDF is still available.