{"id":637,"date":"2025-01-25T06:40:21","date_gmt":"2025-01-25T06:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/existing-home-sales-in-2024-were-slowest-in-decades-amid-high-mortgage-rates\/"},"modified":"2025-01-25T06:40:21","modified_gmt":"2025-01-25T06:40:21","slug":"existing-home-sales-in-2024-were-slowest-in-decades-amid-high-mortgage-rates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/existing-home-sales-in-2024-were-slowest-in-decades-amid-high-mortgage-rates\/","title":{"rendered":"Existing-Home Sales in 2024 Were Slowest in Decades Amid High Mortgage Rates"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">High interest rates kept U.S. home sales in a deep freeze for much of last year. It could be a while before the market experiences much of a thaw.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Americans bought just over four million previously owned homes last year, the <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nar.realtor\/research-and-statistics\/housing-statistics\/existing-home-sales\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">National Association of Realtors said on Friday<\/a>. That was the fewest since 1995 and far below the annual pace of roughly five million that was typical before the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Sales picked up a bit toward the end of the year, rising 9.3 percent in December from a year earlier. That increase probably reflected the dip in mortgage rates in the summer and early fall \u2014 to about 6 percent on average for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage \u2014 which made homes more affordable for buyers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But mortgage rates have since rebounded to about 7 percent, and most forecasters don\u2019t expect them to come down much in the next few months. That makes a significant increase in home sales unlikely this year, said Charlie Dougherty, an economist at Wells Fargo.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cYou saw sales beginning to perk up a little bit, but it\u2019s still sluggish,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s indicative of a really forceful or energetic recovery that\u2019s going to be coming.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Home prices soared during the pandemic, as Americans sought more space and rock-bottom interest rates made it easy to borrow. Real-estate agents told of frenetic bidding wars as buyers competed for available homes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That frenzy suddenly stopped when the rapid increase in inflation led the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to their highest level in decades. Interest rates on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage jumped, from below 3 percent in late 2021 to nearly 8 percent two years later.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The combination of high prices and high interest rates made homes unaffordable for many seeking to buy. And owners, many of whom had either bought their homes or refinanced their mortgages when rates were low, had little incentive to sell. That kept inventories low and prices high.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">There are hints that the housing market might gradually be returning to normal, as life events \u2014 new jobs, new babies, marriages, divorces \u2014 force owners to sell, and as buyers adjust to higher borrowing costs. Inventories have edged up, and surveys show more owners plan to sell.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But unless mortgage rates fall, that normalization process is likely to be slow, Mr. Dougherty said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI think it\u2019s probably safe to say that home sales have found a floor,\u201d he said. But, he added, \u201cif you look at the overall level, it\u2019s still very, very weak.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>High interest rates kept U.S. home sales in a deep freeze for much of last year. It could be a while before the market experiences much of a thaw. Americans bought just over four million previously owned homes last year, the National Association of Realtors said on Friday. That was the fewest since 1995 and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[300,297,301,302,303,298,299],"class_list":["post-637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-decades","tag-existinghome","tag-high","tag-mortgage","tag-rates","tag-sales","tag-slowest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}