Weekly Housing Trends, List of millennial homebuyer hot spots

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Weekly Housing Trends Summary—Data for Week Ending July 13, 2024link

• The median listing price was unchanged year-over-year, marking the 25th consecutive week with price growth below 1%. While the price growth is minimal, homes are still more expensive per square foot than last year, indicating higher costs for buyers.

• New listings increased by 8.8% compared to a year ago, reflecting a slight growth above the 2024 weekly average. However, the share of active listings that are new decreased, suggesting fewer choices overall compared to pre-2023 levels.

• Active inventory grew by 35.8% from the previous year, continuing a 36-week trend of increasing for-sale homes. Despite this growth, the number of available homes is still more than 30% below pre-pandemic levels, indicating a tighter market.

Mortgage refinance demand jumps to a 2-year high, as interest rates dropLink

• Applications to refinance a home loan jumped 15% last week compared with the previous week.

• The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($766,550 or less) decreased to 6.87% from 7.00%

• Applications for a mortgage to purchase a home fell 3% for the week and were 14% lower than the same week one year ago.

How often does rent growth top 5%? Link

• Biden's proposal targets corporate landlords with 50+ units, capping annual rent increases at 5%. Landlords exceeding this cap risk losing valuable federal tax breaks, directly impacting their profitability.

• At the start of 2019, about one-third of the largest cities had rent growth above 5%, surging in late 2021 and early 2022 when all major cities exceeded this threshold. Currently, rent growth has slowed, with only Madison, WI, experiencing more than 5% growth last month.

• The policy's impact fluctuates with market conditions, affecting fewer cities during slow periods but potentially broadening during housing booms. This dynamic suggests the cap's effectiveness will vary significantly over time.

Rent-to-Income Ratios Trend Down in Market-Rate Apartmentslink

• Nationwide rent-to-income ratios have dropped below 23%, indicating a slight improvement in affordability. This metric fell to 22.7% by June, reflecting a stabilization in rent growth.

• Midwest cities like Detroit, Chicago, and Pittsburgh have some of the lowest rent-to-income ratios. In contrast, Riverside and San Diego in California report the highest ratios, suggesting significant regional disparities.

• Average monthly incomes on leases reached nearly $8,800 in June, equating to over $105,000 annually. This figure accounts for total unit income, including dual-income households.

Raleigh, Nashville top list of millennial homebuyer hot spots: SmartAssetlink

• Raleigh leads with 6.5% of millennials buying homes in 2022, having a median income of $123,000 and median home price of $445,000. The median mortgage rate for these buyers was 4.4%.

• Other top cities include Nashville, Denver, and Charlotte, all seeing at least 5% millennial home purchases. In contrast, San Francisco saw less than 1% due to high home prices.

• Atlanta had the highest number of millennial home purchases at 83,000 in 2022, despite being 15th in percentage terms. Median income for new homeowners in top metros was $109,000, significantly higher than the national median of $74,580.

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Vidit

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