The U.S. housing market lost more steam as summer began, with pending sales continuing their slide and the number of homes for sale slowly growing. Google trends also revealed a continued decline in online house hunting, with searches for “Real Estate” dipping below 2019 levels (-4.5%) for the first time this year. Mortgage purchase applications fell dramatically week over week (-5%) to their lowest level since May 2020, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association home purchase index.
Home prices are still climbing, posting their highest year-over-year gain on record, but the share of homes for sale with price drops inched above 2020 levels for the first time this year. Most measures of early-stage homebuying demand point to further cooling in the housing market over the summer, but Redfin’s Homebuyer Demand Index—a measure of requests for home tours and other home-buying services from Redfin agents—rose slightly from the prior week. This may be a reflection of the fact that there was a small increase in the number of homes available to tour.
Unless otherwise noted, the data in this report covers the four-week period ending June 27. Redfin’s housing market data goes back through 2012.
“The month of June was a clear turning point in the ultra-hot housing market of 2021,” said Redfin Lead Economist Taylor Marr. “As home prices continue to set records, some buyers have hit their limit and are stepping back. At the same time, homes are hitting the market at pre-pandemic levels again, which may finally ease competition and bring some sense of balance to the market. The upshot is that fewer bidding wars could actually keep some on-the-fence buyers in the market and lure back some of the homebuying dropouts.”
Refer to our metrics definition page for explanations of all the metrics used in this report.
