“The housing market has been red hot as a wave of opportunistic homebuyers has taken advantage of record-low mortgage rates and the flexibility to work from anywhere during the pandemic,” said Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather. “Those tailwinds aren’t going away, so we may see a new wave of buyers in the new year, as people reevaluate whether their living situations really make sense given just how much the world has changed.”
“Prices are still strong, demand is still high and bidding wars are still intense, but a lot of my buyers are starting to say that they’d rather wait until next year to purchase a home, in hopes that prices will come down and competition will taper off,” said Jasen Oda, a Redfin real estate agent in Seattle. “There’s also a lot of uncertainty due to the election. I have one buyer who wants to make an offer contingent on selling his home, but he doesn’t want to list his property during the week of the election.”
More than half (57.1%) of U.S. homebuyers and sellers plan to wait until after the election to purchase or sell a home, according to a Redfin survey of 900 people conducted in October.
