At the national level, housing affordability is down from last month and down from a year ago. Mortgage rates rose to 4.99 percent this November, up 19.1 percent compared to 4.19 percent a year ago. Housing affordability declined from a year ago in November moving the index down 10.6 percent from 161.0 to 144.0. The […] Michael Hyman, Research Data Specialist

In 1981 when NAR first started tracking the data, the average age of a first-time homebuyer was 29.  They made up 44 percent of all homebuyers.  Sixty-eight percent of first-time buyers were married couples, 12 percent were single female and 13 percent were single male (seven percent were other). In contrast, in 2018, the average […] Meredith Dunn, Research Communications Manager

Mortgage rates are starting off 2019 at very good levels. In fact, mortgage rates declined, starting the new year with the 30-year fixed rate mortgage dipping to 4.5 percent last week from 5 percent a month ago, according to mortgage finance provider Freddie Mac[1]. After a year of gradual increases, mortgage rates are declining. Stock market […] Nadia Evangelou, Research Economist

Every year, transactions and prices tend to be above-trend in the summer while activity typically slows down in the winter. Seasonality plays an important role in the housing market since it has an impact on the housing demand and supply. In this post, we exclusively look at the (raw) non-seasonally adjusted numbers for existing home […] Nadia Evangelou, Research Economist

The REALTORS® Confidence Index (RCI)[1]  survey gathers monthly information from REALTORS® about local real estate market conditions, characteristics of buyers and sellers, and issues affecting homeownership and real estate transactions.[2] This report presents key results about market transactions from November 2018. View and download the full report here. Market Conditions and Expectations The REALTORS® Buyer […] Karen Belita, Data Scientist