Some home shoppers are feeling hopeless this spring and making competitive moves in order to get a home. They’re reportedly rushing to making offers without seeing homes first, bidding well above the asking price, or waiving inspections entirely to get sellers to find their offer the most alluring.
“For home buyers, this is shaping up to be one of the most difficult years in recent memory,” says Ralph McLaughlin, chief economist of Veritas Urbis Economics, a firm that researches the housing market.
Record low supplies of homes for sale are driving up prices across the country.
As for sellers, they may find some big profits when they do sell. “It’s going to have the feel of a hot market” with multiple offers and bidding wars, says Lawrence Yun, the chief economist for the National Association of REALTORS®.
Still, Yun expects sales to be flat compared to a year ago due to the shortage of homes for sale as well as reduced affordability for many house hunters.
There was a 3.4-month supply of existing homes nationwide in February—the lowest on record for a February, NAR reports. The median home price, meanwhile, was up 5.9 percent from a year earlier to $241,700, according to NAR. Yet, average yearly income growth has held at about 2.5 percent.
Source: “Home Buying Market so Brutal, Some Home Buyers Make Offer Sight Unseen,” USA Today (April 5, 2018)
