Attaching the latest trends in housing and mortgage finance via the Urban Institute's October 2020 Chart book. Please click on the download link below and view the video that they shared for additional details.
Additional housing and mortgage highlights or recent data include:
Rates: Mortgage rates drop to historic lows
Mortgage applications: Jumped 3.8% last week (driven by rates). Refinance activity gained 6% from the previous week – up 88% higher than the same week last year
Real estate brokerage results: Keller Williams agents saw sales volume shoot up 25.4% over Q3 2019 and up 49.47% over Q2 volume
Zillow Traffic: Q3 traffic to Zillow mobile apps and websites reached a record 236 million average monthly unique users, an increase of 21% year over year, driving 2.8 billion visits during the quarter, an increase of 32% year over year. So not only are more people visiting, but they are also visiting more often…
Homebuilding: Lumber prices have skyrocketed 160% since April because there is not enough domestic production, adding about $16,000 to the cost of building a new house. For better or worse, this lumber price bubble popped in the last few weeks, dropping 39% but not quite back to pre-pandemic prices. Despite uncertainty on input costs, builder confidence continues to break records.
Home prices: Home price appreciation of 6.7% in September, but appreciate is forecasted to moderate
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