Real Estate Market Trends

Recent trends in the nation's housing market, such as rising interest rates, a lack of inventory, and low affordability, have together contributed to a minor slowdown over the course of the last several months. Although these issues aren't exactly fun, it is important to remember that they represent a needed correction to the unsustainably high rate of home price growth which had been ongoing in many cities across the country. With that being said, the National Association of Realtor's October report on existing-home sales reveals some reasons to be hopeful about the housing market's trajectory. Keep reading to learn about October by the numbers!

Potential home buyers consistently regard saving for the down payment as one of the greatest barriers to buying a home, and who can blame them? Although the exact dollar amount required up front by the lender depends on the type of mortgage and purchase price, buyers generally need to come up with several tens of thousands of dollars in order to take out their home loan. Of course, as is true with any statistic, there is a wide range of averages observed across the nation's fifty states, and both down payment amounts and percentages follow this rule. With that in mind, LendingTree sought to determine which state's mortgage borrowers were offering up the largest and smallest down payments in Q3. They found that Arkansas buyers paid some of the smallest amounts up front, both in dollars and as a percentage.

The amount of new home construction finally rose in July after hitting a nine-month low in June, although the underwhelming rise will do little to ease inventory pressure. The Commerce Department reported last week that total housing starts rose to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 1.17 million units last month, which was less than a 1% increase over the nine-month low in June of 1.16 million units. Although the increase is certainly good news, its small scale is expected to do little to satisfy home buyer demand or cool rising home prices.