Canceled home-sales contracts hit their highest rate in almost a year as skittish homebuyers blanche at mortgage rates that are the highest they’ve been in more than 20 years

Sidelined homebuyers can breathe a sigh of relief. According to Realtor.com, the best week of the year to buy a home is still ahead of us.

The median area for a new single-family home fell to 2,191 square feet in the second quarter — the lowest recorded size since 2010.

CoreLogic expects prices to continue to grow through next year, albeit at a more traditional pace than in the height of the pandemic. 

Those looking to buy a house will be paying a premium as inventory continues to be an issue.

Eighteen percent of millennials — approximately one in five — believe they will never become a homeowner, according to a recent survey from Redfin.

Pending transactions were in negative territory for most of this year, so the recent increases could bode well for future activity. 

A fifth consecutive month of increases in the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index suggests the housing market recovery that began earlier this year is likely to continue. 

Two weeks after housing inventory turned negative, home prices posted a healthy increase, MarketNsight said. 

First-timers made up 45% of buyers in 2022 and 37% in 2021.

High mortgage rates and limited inventory continued to weigh on sales activity, National Association of REALTORS®Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said. 

Single-family home permits and completions, meanwhile, also rose, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

Meanwhile, July’s home sale prices had their highest increase since November.

Of survey respondents who made a wedding registry in the past two years, 85% said they would have preferred to receive money they could have used towards a down payment, mortgage payment or other associated homebuying costs.

The industry group issued its housing-market forecast along with its monthly Pending Home Sales Index for June. 

Back in 2018, Freddie Mac stated that the country still needed about 2.5 million extra homes in order to meet demand. Then the pandemic homebuying boom depleted already-low inventory levels and high mortgage rates in the second half of 2022 chained many homeowners to their existing low rates.