Cooling Market, Growing Households and More 2019 Predictions

A new end-of-year report from Redfin offers 7 predictions for the 2019 housing market including easier access to credit for homebuyers and a renewed focus by builders on starter homes.

The rate of homeownership in the U.S. has been steadily increasing since 2016, and is expected to flourish in 2019, according to Redfin. Helping this along is the expectation of greater access to financing home purchases, fueled by lenders seeking to appeal to borrowers, though there may be subsequent risks and greater costs, "lenders will charge more for these loans–both to cover the risk of lending to borrowers with less-than-perfect credit and to cover their own costs of borrowing," writes Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather.

We predict that the housing market will continue to cool into the first half of 2019. Inventory will rise back up to 2017 levels, and price growth, while likely still positive, will be the lowest we’ve seen since 2014 or possibly even 2011. Investors and house-flippers will back away from the cooling market, and real estate companies that buy homes from consumers to quickly sell at a profit (including our own RedfinNow) will face their first serious test. Tech companies and local governments will continue to go head to head on local housing issues.

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