Last weekend’s annual Keller Williams conference in Anaheim California shed some light on the volatile national real estate market. In his State of the Housing Market address on Sunday, Gary Keller, the founder of Keller Williams Real Estate, provided a comprehensive update comparing historical trends in the real estate market and even made some predictions for 2023.
For many, 2022 felt like one of the worst years on record for real estate, yet historical data shows the market is nowhere near the lows of previous market cycles. In fact from a market value standpoint, 2022 was still one of the highest on record in sales volume. Why? Home appreciation has skyrocketed, but there is more to the story.
In the United States, the total number of home transactions dropped a significant amount, from 6.1M in 2021 to 5M in 2022. We haven’t seen a level this low since 2014.
However, rising home appreciation is greatly impacting the national real estate economy. Nationally, the long-term trend in home appreciation is 4% annually. Yet home prices increased significantly, 12% above the 4% trend line in 2022.
This drove the total market volume to a near-record high of 2.53 trillion. And surprisingly, the total volume of the real estate market in 2023, is projected to reach $2.13 trillion even though appreciation is expected to decline by 1.0 percent.
But there are challenges ahead. In the last 12 months, mortgage rates have risen sharply as the Federal Reserve tries to control inflation and avoid a dramatic recession. This is putting a significant damper on home sales when last year’s interest rates could be found below 3% and now buyers are faced with a 6% rate. But 3% is not the norm. In fact, the historical average interest rate from 1972 through 2022 is 7.81%. The historical average interest rate from 1990 through 2022 is 5.97%.
Another challenge is affordability and inflation. Last year, affordability spiked to well above the long-term average putting homeownership out of reach for many. Used as a gauge of the economy’s health, in 2022 the Gross Domestic Product was down significantly from 2021 indicating that the attempt to cool the economy with higher rates is working, yet unemployment remains historically low.
For a deeper dive into this data, feel free to contact a KWJH agent to discuss this report, along with the local market trends as we head into 2023.
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