Affordability

While home price growth remains somewhat slower than 2021 levels, Peyton Whitney, Research Assistant at the Joint Center for Housing Studies, reveals the descent of home price trends this year and what they could look like in 2024.

Asking rents have declined year-over-year in three of the last four months, according to a new Rent.com report, dropping a total of four times in 2023. As prices continue to climb in the Midwest, other regions saw annual declines in November, as the market continues its seasonal slowdown.

While mobile homes are typically less expensive than more traditional site-built, single-family housing, according to a new LendingTree report, that doesn’t mean they’re cheap. See how much mobile homes are costing across the U.S. in this new report.

“Some parts of the country continue to pop up on the radar as places to watch for signs of housing-market drop-offs, based on key quarterly measures,” said Rob Barber, CEO at ATTOM. “Once again, it is important to stress that getting onto the most-vulnerable list doesn’t signal an imminent crash for any local market.”

A combination of “inflation, high prices, soaring mortgage rates, and low housing supply caused 2023 to go down as the least affordable year for housing in recent history,” said Redfin Senior Economist Elijah de la Campa.

"This year, in the face of a global housing crisis, Habitat staff, supporters, volunteers, advocates and homeowners made meaningful progress toward our vision of a world where everyone has a decent place to live," said Jonathan Reckford, CEO of Habitat for Humanity International.

While more than 40% of all U.S. mortgages were obtained in 2020 or 2021 when rates were at their lowest, younger generations are currently bearing the unfortunate brunt of high mortgage rates, preventing many from buying and attaining the dream of homeownership.

“Despite the risk of volatility in the housing market, homeownership remains an important driver of wealth accumulation and the largest source of total wealth among most households,” said Ksenia Potapov, an Economist at First American Financial.

Redfin’s new forecast examines whether next year's market will favor buyers, whether renting will lose any of its appeal, and how location will factor in due to issues such as in-office policies, climate risk, and affordability.

Outpacing millennials, Gen Zers are now driving renter households, according to a new analysis from the Joint Center for Housing Studies. As Gen Z rental demand heightens and older generations exit the rental market, experts predict the number of renter households Gen Z adds in the next 15 years will be an important pillar of housing demand.