Housing market may be "softening"

No one is predicting a crash in the housing market yet, but there are signs of a slow-down. Mostly due to raising mortgage rates and a change in the tax law, in my opinion. Realtor.com has a analysis via the link below.

Then there are the smaller cities, like Austin, TX, and Nashville, TN, that burst onto the national scene just a few years ago—poster children for the supercharged housing recovery. Home prices rose to meteoric heights as builders raced to put up new abodes and transplants from even higher-priced metros flooded the cities. At the same time, their populations shot up 18.5% and 10.6% respectively from April 1, 2010, to July 1, 2017, according to U.S. Census data.

And then, despite all the hype, list prices did the unthinkable—they began to fall. Austin is a particular eye-opener: List prices dipped about 3%, to a median of $362,000 in August compared with the previous year, according to our realtor.com analysis. The year before that they dipped 2%. And while median sales prices (what these abodes actually fetched) actually rose4.2% for the year, according to CoreLogic, it's the slowest rate of growth since 2010.

"Home prices have just gone up too fast," ATTOM's Blomquist says of Austin. "It doesn't mean that all of a sudden it's a market that's going to crash. But it does mean there are limits to what people can afford."

Housing Slowdown? Softening? Whatever You Call It, It's Real and It's Here