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Buyers return to market post presidential election

by Liz Hughes

One week after the presidential election, Redfin is reporting that buyers are returning to the market.

Buyers had been sitting on the sidelines awaiting the election’s outcome, as well as drops in mortgage rates, but they are back and looking to buy.

According to Redfin’s Homebuyer Demand Index, requests for tours and services from Redfin agents were up more than 15% last weekend, the highest level in nearly a year and a half. 

Additionally, Redfin reported that home purchase mortgage-rate locks more than doubled from last month. 

Redfin attributed the increase in buying activity to “pent-up demand being unleashed” now that the uncertainty from the election has passed. This aligns with a post-election survey by the company, which found that 22% of U.S. residents are more likely to consider moving now that the election is over.

During the four weeks ended Nov. 10, pending home sales rose 4.7% from last year.

“There’s no question we saw homebuying demand bounce back this past weekend, but it’s bouncing back to the level we would expect with 7% mortgage rates and not much higher,” said Chen Zhao, Redfin’s economic research lead. “House hunting activity was much slower than expected this summer and early fall, especially given that rates dropped down to the 6% range.

“Buyers were waiting for the election to be over, and for the Fed to cut rates for the second month in a row. Both of those things happened last week, and now buyers don’t have much reason to wait — especially because we don’t expect rates to fall significantly anytime soon.”

New listings remained unchanged from last year, marking the first time in a year they haven’t increased. The report noted that this aligns with the overall listing trend for the last month, as listings grew by less than 1% in three of the last four weeks.

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