By Living Room Realty, January 5, 2024
It is really tempting to throw out some predictions…but my track record has not been great to the past few years, so I’m just going to tell you what I know. Last year ended with rates strongly trending in the right direction. Mid-Fall we touched the sun at 8% and by New Years Day it was just above 6%. I can say with certainty that 6.25% looks a hell of a lot better on the way down than it did on the way up!
Most lenders and Realtors are feeling pretty optimistic about this year. Along with rates, buyer sentiment is trending in the positive direction, and we anticipate that the folks who were sitting on their hands in 2023 will re-enter the market along with the seasonal buyers who would have been entering the market this year regardless. My personal hope is that it doesn’t all happen at once causing excess competition. Because of that concern, my refrain to buyers has been to get going ASAP before everyone else catches on.
I attended an economic forecast in Late-November and the speaker had a few interesting bullet points on rates this year. 1) The Federal Reserve, in an effort to appear non-partisan in an election year, is not likely to tinker with rates once we get through Q1, maybe a little into Q2. 2) The floor of rates for 2024 is about 6.13%. He had a bunch of data about short/long term bonds + other indicators to explain why that was the hard floor. It made sense to me at the time…but I cannot explain beyond the basics. 3) Looking into the next several years, it is very unlikely that rates will get back into the 3%-range.
If you want the more nuanced version…give me a call!
