On a positive note, home sales remain 31.3% above levels of 3 years ago
Chicago, IL (PRWEB) August 03, 2014
Lenders like Peoples Home Equity were disappointed to see a decline in Thursday’s weekly home sales announcement for the second consecutive time. Weekly home sales have note declined for two consecutive weeks since before March 27th.
According to DQnews.com’s “National Home Sales Snapshot” on Thursday, August 3rd weekly home sales of 256,868 declined -0.5% from the week prior while the sale of median home prices remained unchanged. Weekly home sales widened their gap from the week prior showing a -2.8% fall in sales versus 2013 whereas during the week prior it was just -2.1%. On July 10th, sales had been just -1.3% below surpassing those of a year ago. On a positive note, home sales remain 31.3% above levels of 3 years ago and median home sales prices at 235,000 are up 23.7% from 3 years ago. Peoples Home Equity still has faith that sales may still surpass those of 2013, but weekly home sales are currently slowing due to many factors. The factors that are slowing home sales are a lack of real estate inventory, a slight 0.1% rise in unemployment in July, falling equity markets, and a net negative sum of mortgage applications since the end of May.
As show on Tradingeconomics.com, weekly mortgage applications fell not only -2.2% last week, but are at a net negative of -13.8% over the past 7 weeks. Peoples Home Equity emphasizes that this net negative in weekly applications have influenced why weekly home sales are not pushing to levels higher than 2013. Mortgage applications are a key ingredient to home sales as most properties in America are purchase through financing, the other large minority are cash buyers.
If home sales continue to fall in the coming weeks, so might prices, but this is unlikely, an imbalance of high demand and lack of inventory just keeps propping up home values. The time to purchase a home is now, the risk of mortgage rates increasing is high and so is the probability of home price increasing further. Peoples Home Equity encourages prospective mortgage applicants to at least get pre-approved for a home loan now before buying a home becomes less affordable.
Contact a Peoples Home Equity loan officer today at: 262-563-4026