February brought another booming month of home sales:
Bottom Line: Any way you slice it the real-estate market is hot and off to it's best two month start since 2007. Nationally we saw the following action with existing home sales via the National Association of Realtors:
- Sales: +5.4% yoy
- Prices: +7.7% yoy
- All-cash sales were 27 percent of sales (best since 2015)
What's unclear is how much of the housing surge in early 2017 is related to mortgage rate concerns. Much of the narrative surrounding housing activity increasing post-election cycle involved people rushing their timeline to buy due to fears of mortgage rate increases. While that may account for some activity - it's actually counter to the fact that we experienced the highest percentage of all-cash transactions since 2015.
It's hard to tell how sustainable these increases are as we advance through the sixth year of the housing recovery but with rent rates still making it more affordable to buy vs. rent and fewer than four months of inventory being on the market nationally (with six months indicating a neutral market), it's likely to continue for at least the near future.