Falling Mortgage Rates Bring Some Home Buyers Back to Market

Industry watchers say that reluctant owners will be more likely to put their homes on the market if average mortgage rates fall another half a percentage point, to 5.5 percent.

“Five and a half is where people get really comfortable,” said Nicole Rueth, a senior vice president at OneTrust Home Loans, a lender based in Denver. Until then, she added, owners will be motivated to sell by personal circumstances: “I’m having a baby, I’m getting married, I need to downsize, I need to move for my job.”

For Jessica Grupp, buying a home coincided with the end of her active duty in the Navy. She had been renting in San Diego, and she wanted to stay after she finished her service. “I’ve wanted to buy here for a while,” she said.

As the market cooled and conditions became favorable again, Ms. Grupp, 33, found a two-bedroom apartment in the city’s University Heights neighborhood. Her offer of $640,000 — $10,000 below the asking price — was accepted, and she moved in with her dog, Kanna, in October.

Now a consultant for PwC, Ms. Grupp is happy she bided her time. “For me, it was finding a place that fit my lifestyle and budget,” she said.

More stories like hers would be welcomed by the real estate industry, which struggled last year as the market slowed down. Several online brokerage firms — including Compass, Redfin and Zillow — have laid off workers. Redfin and Zillow have closed their house-flipping businesses. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp is reportedly in talks with the commercial real estate data provider CoStar to sell Move, a digital real estate business that includes Realtor.com and related sites.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/02/business/mortgage-rates-housing-market.html