Mortgage and Real Estate Market Update on Brooklyn, NY Area
Experts have had to change their forecast on home sales and prices for 2019’s housing market due to mortgage rates falling. Speaking to a Brooklyn mortgage lender, it is said that the housing market in the United States overall is right on track for a much stronger year than originally thought. It’s a good time to visit your Brooklyn mortgage lender if you are in the market for a home. The lower than expected rates of interest have made it more affordable for people to buy a home.
Originally, the forecasted price for homes was set to rise by 2.2%. Now, it has been changed to nearly 3% of a price rise. Its also predicted that we will see a flatline in overall sales in comparison to 2018, with a 0.3% decline by the end of 2019. How will this affect the Brooklyn area housing market?
Brooklyn Forecast for 2019
According to the BBR (Brooklyn Board of Realtors), there was a rise in January of home sales to 216 per month. There was also a drop in median home prices for existing homes in Brooklyn to around $694,000.00 for January of this year. This is down by 4.3% from this time in 2018. Meanwhile, we are seeing a drop down to 4.45% for a 30 year fixed mortgage rate since the previous month.
Because of the mortgage rate drop in 2018 that was not expected, many home buyers were inspired to take action before spring sales began, which is a busy time of year in the housing market. This meant an early rush where applications for mortgages were concerned. Previously, it was expected that the average fixed mortgage rate for a 30 year period would be sitting just over 5% for 2019. However, it dropped to about 4.46% at the end of January, a 10-month low. It is also expected that the average rate will remain under 5% into 2021.
With this dip in interest rates, it is expected that there will be a softening in house price appreciation. Between November of 2017 and 2018, there was an increase in home prices to 5.1%. It is expected that there will be a slowing down to 4.8% by November of this year.
With this in mind, if home buyers are waiting for a further drop in house prices, they may miss out should mortgage rates increase again, missing out on their affordability. There has been a severe shortage in stock for both existing and new build homes, so homebuyers will probably not see much more of a decline in the price of homes for the foreseeable future.
In December of 2018, home sales were at 197 for the month. In January of 2019, this rate jumped to 216, which is a drop of 9.6% compared to this time in 2018. We also saw a decrease in median home prices for the Brooklyn are to around $685,000.00, a figure that is down 1.4% from January of this year, and 4.3% down from this time in 2018. This means that there has been a drop of $30.556.00 in median home prices for the past 12 months.
Now is the best time to visit your Brooklyn mortgage lender to lock in a good rate for your mortgage. With more homes becoming affordable to more people, it seems to be a buyer’s market at this time.
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