What happened to home sales and prices
Mortgage rates eased a bit lately, but they are still about one percentage point above where they were a year ago. That has pushed the typical buyer's monthly payment to the second highest on record, according to Redfin.
With affordability stretched, Redfin reports the median U.S. home price edged down 0.1% year over year in the four weeks ending Oct. 25, breaking a run of increases that lasted more than three years. Pending home sales kept slipping, and a National Association of Realtors reading showed September's tally at the lowest level in 25 years.
Supply is thinning, and sellers are losing leverage
Redfin also notes new listings are falling, now at their lowest since the beginning of this year. The reason: as supply rises and buyers step back, sellers have less clout and cannot command the prices they want.
Why rents are moving the other way
With the for-sale side stuck, more renters are staying put, and rents have started to tick up again. According to Apartment List, nationwide median rent ticked up 0.1% in October - the earliest uptick in more than three years - after a prior surge of new construction had driven rents lower.
Markets where rents are changing
Rents are even perking up across parts of the Sun Belt that had run hot on construction and saw elevated vacancies. Austin, Phoenix and Tampa are beginning to recover. Still, Phoenix, along with Las Vegas and San Antonio, is among the markets with the sharpest declines.
At +13.1% year over year, the San Francisco Bay Area posted the fastest rent growth in the country, with San Jose, California coming next.
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What this means for your money
For investors, returns are shifting within housing: prices just nudged lower while rents found a floor and inched higher. That mix hits portfolios tied to home sales and rental cash flows differently, and it puts a premium on tracking affordability, vacancy and where rent growth is actually showing up.
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