Housing Outlook 2015

Posted by Jennie Temple on Jan 19, 2015 in Blog | 0 comments

Housing Outlook 2015: 11 Predictions From The Experts

Erin Carlyle Forbes Staff

It’s been an odd year for the housing market. It kicked off with the ‘Polar Vortex,’ blamed for slowing home sales in the early part of the year. As 2014 draws to a close, the National Association of Realtors expects sales of previously owned homes to fall short of 2013’s total, while the latest monthly data on new homes show sales were up just 1.8% in October from a year earlier. Meanwhile, price gains for previously owned homes have slowed significantly. Still, builder confidence in the market for newly constructed, single-family homes has been high for six straight months.

What’s going on? The confusing signals actually have a straightforward explanation: the housing market has been shifting out of rapid recovery and into a more stable phase that economists are calling the new normal. Here are 11 things housing experts expect to see in housing in 2015:

1. Prices will rise more slowly

2. Affordability will worsen

3. The buying frenzy will fade

4. Mortgage interest rates will rise

5. Millennials overtake Gen X as homebuyers

6. Rent increases will outpace home value growth

7. Multifamily will reign

8. Builders shift to cheaper homes

9. Foreclosures will match pre-recession levels

10. Markets driven by fundamentals

11. The wildcard: global geopolitics

Click HERE for full article