The housing market has been going crazy over the last few years, and for a while, it seemed like there was no end in sight — but prices may finally be starting to decline.
The U.S. Census Bureau released a report in May revealing that sales of new homes dropped 16.6% between March and April 2022 — and a whopping 26.9% since April 2021.
But does this mean we now know the direction of prices and can expect may be not a housing market crash but at least, a trend of lower housing market prices? Let’s take a look at the evidence.
There have been several reports recently offering conflicting data on the direction of housing market prices; A Zillow report indicated higher prices while a report from CoreLogic suggested lower prices. The latter is in line with the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development report.
This is a monthly joint report on the sales of new single-family houses each month. The latest notes that 591,000 new homes were sold in April 2022 — compared to 809,000 in March 2022 and 809,000 in April 2021.
While the housing market has been on fire over the last couple of years, we’ve also remained firmly within a seller’s market.The housing bubble we’re witnessing means more prospective buyers are looking for homes than houses on the market, which gives sellers much more influence on prices.