{"id":77226,"date":"2023-12-15T05:00:24","date_gmt":"2023-12-15T13:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.redfin.com\/news\/?p=77226"},"modified":"2023-12-14T15:31:41","modified_gmt":"2023-12-14T23:31:41","slug":"housing-market-tracker-november-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.redfin.com\/news\/housing-market-tracker-november-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Falling Mortgage Rates Breathe New Life Into Housing Market as Listings, Pending Sales and Price Growth Hit Highest Level in Roughly a Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

More homes are changing hands as mortgage rates drop and buyers and sellers see more eye to eye on price. Still, deals are falling through at the highest rate on record due to lingering economic uncertainty, and some metros continue to see price declines.<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

New listings and pending home sales both climbed to the highest level in roughly a year in November as buyers and sellers got tired of waiting on the sidelines and mortgage rates ticked down. Home prices also jumped, posting the biggest year-over-year increase since late 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n

New listings rose 1.3% month over month to the highest level since October 2022 on a seasonally adjusted basis, and increased 0.1% from a year earlier\u2014a small gain, but the first in a year and a half. Active listings, or the <\/span>total <\/span><\/i>supply of homes for sale, grew 3.9% month over month\u2014the biggest increase since July 2022 (though they fell 7.9% from a year earlier).<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cBuyers and sellers are learning to live with uncertainty,\u201d said <\/span>Shay Stein<\/span><\/a>, a <\/span>Redfin Premier<\/span><\/a> real estate agent in <\/span>Las Vegas<\/span>. \u201cThey\u2019ve realized no one has a crystal ball that can predict exactly when mortgage rates will fall back to 5%, so they\u2019re making moves now because they can only wait so long to be near their grandkids, live in an RV like they\u2019ve always dreamt of or finalize their divorce.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While rates aren\u2019t back to 5%, they have fallen in recent weeks, which has motivated buyers, Stein said. In many cases, their monthly payment is $200 <\/span>less<\/span><\/a> than it would\u2019ve been had they locked in a rate three weeks ago when they started looking, she explained. The average 30-year-fixed mortgage rate <\/span>declined<\/span><\/a> every week in November after hitting a 23-year high of 7.79% at the end of October. It ended November at 7.22%, and currently stands at 6.95%, though that\u2019s still higher than the 6.3% rate of a year ago.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Pending home sales rose 2% month over month in November to the highest level in a year on a seasonally adjusted basis, and fell 0.1% from a year earlier.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cAnother reason sales are ticking up is buyers and sellers are finally living in the same reality,\u201d Stein said. \u201cA year ago, sellers had trouble understanding why they weren\u2019t getting $20,000 over the list price like their neighbor did during the pandemic homebuying boom. Now, they understand that to sell their home, they need to price it fairly and in some cases offer the buyer concessions like money toward closing costs or mortgage-rate <\/span>buydowns<\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

November 2023 Highlights: United States<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/th>\nNovember 2023<\/b><\/th>\nMonth-Over-Month Change<\/b><\/th>\nYear-Over-Year Change<\/b><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Median sale price<\/b><\/th>\n$408,732<\/span><\/th>\n-1.1%<\/span><\/th>\n3.7%<\/span><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Pending sales, seasonally adjusted<\/b><\/th>\n406,687<\/span><\/th>\n2.0%<\/span><\/th>\n-0.1%<\/span><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Homes sold, seasonally adjusted<\/b><\/th>\n411,958<\/span><\/th>\n0.2%<\/span><\/th>\n-5.4%<\/span><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
New listings, seasonally adjusted<\/b><\/th>\n504,263<\/span><\/th>\n1.3%<\/span><\/th>\n0.1%<\/span><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
All homes for sale, seasonally adjusted (active listings)<\/b><\/th>\n1,504,094<\/span><\/th>\n3.9%<\/span><\/th>\n-7.9%<\/span><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Months of supply<\/b><\/th>\n2.9<\/span><\/th>\n0.2<\/span><\/th>\n-0.1<\/span><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Median days on market<\/b><\/th>\n36<\/span><\/th>\n2<\/span><\/th>\n-1<\/span><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Share of for-sale homes with a price drop<\/b><\/th>\n18.7%<\/span><\/th>\n-1.3 ppts<\/span><\/th>\n-0.7 ppts<\/span><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Share of homes sold above final list price<\/b><\/th>\n28.7%<\/span><\/th>\n-3.0 ppts<\/span><\/th>\n2.3 ppts<\/span><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Average sale-to-final-list-price ratio<\/b><\/th>\n99.0%<\/span><\/th>\n-0.3 ppts<\/span><\/th>\n0.5 ppts<\/span><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Pending sales that fell out of contract, as % of overall pending sales<\/b><\/th>\n16.9%<\/span><\/th>\n0.1\u00a0 ppts<\/span><\/th>\n1.3\u00a0 ppts<\/span><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
\n

Average 30-year fixed mortgage rate<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

7.44%<\/span><\/td>\n-0.18 ppts<\/span><\/td>\n0.63 ppts<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Note: Data is subject to revision<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Home Prices Posted the Biggest Increase Since October 2022<\/h3>\n

The median U.S. home sale price was $408,732 in November. That\u2019s up 3.7% from a year earlier\u2014the biggest jump since October 2022\u2014and down 1.1% from a month earlier.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Annual home price growth seems to be normalizing after prices surged as much as 26% at the height of the pandemic homebuying boom and then fell as much as 4% in early 2023 amid elevated mortgage rates. Price growth is now back to the 2%-7% range it was in prior to the pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though elevated mortgage rates have dampened demand in recent months, prices have continued rising in part because buyers are competing for a limited number of homes. While listings have inched up in recent months, they remain low by historical standards.<\/span><\/p>\n

Purchases Fell Through at Record Rate as Some Buyers Got Cold Feet<\/h3>\n

While pending sales hit the highest level in a year in November, <\/span>closed<\/span><\/i> sales hovered near their recent low. They were little changed from a month earlier (0.2%) on a seasonally adjusted basis, and fell 5.4% from a year earlier. That\u2019s partly because a lot of deals fell through at the last minute.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Roughly 45,000 U.S. home-purchase agreements were canceled in November, equal to 16.9% of homes that went under contract that month\u2014the highest percentage in Redfin records that date back to 2017. That\u2019s up from 16.8% one month earlier and 15.6% one year earlier.<\/span><\/p>\n

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While some buyers and sellers have come to terms with today\u2019s economic uncertainty, that same uncertainty is causing many of them to get cold feet, Stein said. Even though mortgage rates have dropped, housing affordability remains strained, meaning a lot of buyers still get nervous when they see their monthly payment on paper.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Economic woes are keeping many people out of the housing market altogether. A lot of Americans feel that the economy is in a bad place despite economic growth, rising wages and low unemployment. One obvious <\/span>culprit<\/span><\/a> is the housing market, which is in its <\/span>least affordable<\/span><\/a> year on record.<\/span><\/p>\n

Please note that homes that fell out of contract during a given month didn\u2019t necessarily go under contract the same month. For example, a home that fell out of contract in November could have gone under contract in October.<\/span> Scroll to the bottom of this report to find the deal cancellation rate for the 50 most populous U.S. metropolitan areas, along with other local insights.<\/span><\/p>\n

Metro-Level Highlights: November 2023<\/span><\/h3>\n

Data in the bullets below came from a list of the 91 U.S. metro areas with populations of at least 750,000. Select metros may be excluded from time to time to ensure data accuracy. A full metro-level data table can be found in the \u201cdownload\u201d tab of the dashboard in<\/span><\/i> the monthly section of the Redfin <\/span><\/i>Data Center<\/span><\/i><\/a>. <\/span><\/i>Refer to our <\/span><\/i>metrics definition page<\/span><\/i><\/a> for explanations of metrics used in this report. Metro-level data is not seasonally adjusted.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n