Is Summer the Best Time for Homebuying?

NerdWallet released its latest report on the current state of housing, and it seems that temperatures are the only thing soaring so far this summer.

According to the experts, home prices that are normally skyrocketing by this time of year are not behaving as usual.

For most hopeful homebuyers, summer is the season when heat waves are accompanied with an influx of newly listed homes on the market. This pattern usually begins in early spring and is in full swing by the time school lets out in June. But not this year, as according to NerdWallet, all signs point to 2020’s increase in market activity being delayed by the complications surrounding COVID-19.

While many experts still expect that we will indeed have a homebuying season, they predict that it will arrive far later than in recent years. They attribute this delay to factors directly related to the COVID-19 outbreak, including record unemployment rates, increased regulations on lending, and an overall sense of reluctance from prospective homebuyers.

A NerdWallet survey revealed that roughly one-third of those Americans previously planning to purchase a home this season were deciding to forgo this plan for certain, while just a bit more than that (35%) were at least rethinking this plan to purchase in 2020.

Realtor.com revealed a market trend analysis that showed that the months of June and July are usually when home prices are the most expensive (and supply is most plentiful). In contrast, the cheapest times to buy a home are usually in January and February, when inventory is typically at its lowest. But as this year is bucking that trend, the experts anticipate that this there will more likely be a pushback of at least a several-month window for this usual arc in supply and demand.

As of this moment, the number of buyers taking advantage of extremely low mortgage rates and ready to purchase far surpasses the number of houses available to purchase.