Category: Market Moves

New-home sales picked up in August even as the shelves stayed stocked. The Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported that new single-family home sales rose 6.4% for the month, while the supply of new homes on the market, measured in the number of months it would take to sell off…

The federal agency that tracks home values nationwide says prices kept climbing through the spring, though not everywhere and not evenly. A homeowner’s equity, and the property-tax bill that often follows it upward, moved in sharply different directions depending on which state that home sits in. The figures come from the government’s own index of…

The national number sounds simple: home prices rose 2.1 percent over the year ending in June, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s House Price Index. That average hides a real split. Prices climbed in 46 states and the District of Columbia, while four states moved the other direction, led by a 1.2 percent drop…

Home values are still rising on paper, but the pace has slowed enough that, once inflation is factored in, most homeowners’ houses are effectively worth a little less than they were a year ago. For retirees who count home equity as a major piece of their net worth, or who are weighing whether to sell…

The dream of trading a large family home for a smaller, easier-to-manage place is running into an unfriendly math problem. The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage has climbed to its highest level in about a year, sitting in the mid-6% range this month, and that increase reshapes the arithmetic for older homeowners counting…

For an older homeowner on a fixed income, property taxes are one of the few big bills that keep rising no matter how carefully the budget is managed. Many states and localities offer relief aimed squarely at seniors, in the form of exemptions, assessment freezes, and rebates that can save hundreds or thousands of dollars…

The economist whose forecasts set the tone for much of the housing industry has sharply lowered his expectations for the year. Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors, now projects that existing-home sales will grow about 4% in 2026, a steep markdown from the roughly 14% jump he was calling for just…

Prospective homebuyers hoping for a rebound in housing activity just lost one of their strongest cheerleaders. Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors and widely regarded as the nation’s top housing economist, slashed his 2026 home-sales forecast to roughly 4 percent growth, a sharp retreat from the 14 percent jump he projected…

Buyers who locked in mortgage rates during April and May closed fewer deals than Wall Street expected, dragging existing-home sales in June to their weakest seasonally adjusted pace so far this year. The result fell short of the roughly 4.21 million annualized rate that analysts surveyed by FactSet had projected, extending a sales slump that…

American homebuyers face the most favorable purchasing conditions in years, as national house prices record sustained monthly declines and inflation-adjusted wages continue to climb. The combination has narrowed the gap between what a median-income household earns and what a median-priced home costs each month, a shift that had stalled for much of the past three…