Doug Duncan (pictured top), Fannie Mae’s senior vice president and chief economist, told Mortgage Professional America that a glut of new listings in those two states had somewhat skewed the overall national outlook. “Part of it, we think, is development costs,” he said. “For example, in Texas and Florida, maybe some rising insurance costs, incentives, changing things.
“So the bottom line is [that] existing home supply is up, but not dramatically and it’s heavily impacted by those two states.”
Is the tide turning in favor of homebuyers?
Slumping sales across the new-home market, meanwhile, have pushed supply to its highest level for more than 16 years, according to Commerce Department figures released at the end of June.
With mortgage rates and affordability woes continuing to dampen many Americans’ homebuying intentions, sales of new homes fell by 11.3% in May – helping contribute to an increase in the seasonally-adjusted estimate of new houses for sale to 481,000, or 9.3 months of available supply.
Added to the housing construction pipeline and increase in existing-home listings, could the pendulum swing back in favor of buyers? “Perhaps the affordability side of things is really starting to bite and there’s a reasonable chance that you’ll start to see some price concessions on the new-home side to start to move some of that inventory,” Duncan said.
Source: mpamag.com