NY Times Mag: When Will Housing Return to Normal?

This week's Sunday @nytimes Magazine asked if home buying will ever be normal again. The article focused on Austin, TX during peak house-craziness this past spring. When it wasn't unusual for a house to get 25 or more offers and sell for more than 10% over asking price. The write up examines a city dealing with soaring popularity due to, in part, giant companies like Amazon and Oracle moving in (hi, Nashville).

🧐 How did 2021 get so ultra competitive?

"The current boom is better compared to a river, one fed by streams that have long been visible on the horizon: high demand, low supply, and a dysfunctional economy in which wages are stagnant while restrictive zoning and poor public policy have turned housing into an artificially scarce commodity. Historically low 30-year fixed mortgage rates, hovering between 2.68 and 3.08 for the last year, are narrowing the riverbed, quickening the current."

If you were in Nashville searching for a house in May then Austin's situation has got to look familiar.

🚨Is it any easier to get a house now than it was six months ago?

Middle Tennessee home sales are down 7% from this time last year, but prices keep ticking up. Why is that? Low inventory and seasonality. We'd love a jolt of new construction and resales to hit the market.
Until then, Nashville just might have gone back to its old, pre-Covid Oct-Feb hibernation and that's a good thing for buyers. Listings still go for over asking but the market isn't as nutso as it was.

✨If you were waiting for your time to pounce, I think now is as good a time as any ✨