Buyers in today's real estate market are struggling with a shortage of home inventory. But things open up in that regard.

In June, the total housing stock rose slightly to 1.25 million units and 2.6 months of supply, a modest increase from the 2.5-month supply in May, according to the National Association of Realtors. This in turn resulted in an increase in existing home sales, up 1.4% from May. What is more impressive, however, is that they are up 22.9% over the previous year. This is a clear sign that the supply has picked up.

However, the housing stock at the end of June was still almost 19% below the previous year's figure. As a result, today's buyers may still face some challenges when trying to navigate the current real estate market.

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Is Now a Good Time to Buy a Home?

From a stock and price perspective, now is actually a pretty bad time to buy a home. While the fact that inventories went up in June is a good thing, a 2.6 month supply of home rentals still gives sellers a big upper hand over buyers. It takes 4 to 5 months to give buyers more bargaining power.

In addition, home prices have risen because supply is still scarce overall. In June, the median price for an existing home was $ 363,300. That's a 23.4% increase from June 2020, when the average home price was $ 294,400. Rising prices were also universal – every region in the US saw price gains in June.

As a result, buyers trying to buy a home today are likely to pay much more than usual – and take on higher mortgages as a result. The good news is that mortgage rates are still at competitive levels, which can help offset higher home prices. But that may not be enough to bring today's homes into the affordable range for buyers on a budget.

The benefit of waiting

Many people want to buy a home in the short term in order to benefit from today's attractive mortgage rates. But those rates are likely to stay low not only for the rest of the year but well into 2022 as well. And as the housing stock climbs slowly but surely, it could pay off for buyers to hold on and see how those incremental increases are affecting home prices.

We have just seen how the supply of available apartments has increased from 2.5 months in May to 2.6 months in June. It could be that in July the numbers will increase to 2.8 months' worth of properties and we will be at the 3-month supply mark in August.

When that happens, those modest upward sticks will make a difference over time, which is why it might make sense for some buyers to pause their home hunting and resume later in the year or even into 2022. With a bit of luck, an increase. The supply will lower property prices, giving buyers more options – and not having to work as hard financially to own a property.

source https://seapointrealtors.com/2021/08/01/existing-home-sales-in-june-were-up-23-from-last-year/

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