Commercial real estate deals and prices of properties that are typically less than $2.5 million are still rising though at a modest pace, according to NAR’s 2019 Q2 Commercial Real Estate Market Trends & Outlook Report.
Foreign buyer purchases of U.S. existing homes during April 2018–March 2019 fell sharply to $77.9 billion from the $121 billion during the prior 12-month period (April 2017‒March 2018)—a 36% drop.
At the national level, housing affordability is down from last month, but up from a year ago. Mortgage rates were down from last month at 4.11% this May, and down 7.7% compared to 4.71% a year ago.
This post will look at the states that are seeing increases in homeownership, as well as look at homeownership rates among Black and African Americans, Asian and Pacific Islanders, American Indians, and Whites and Caucasians by state.
Job openings in construction in May 2019 outpaced the number of workers looking for construction jobs.
Eighty-two percent of respondents reported that home prices remained constant or rose in May 2019 compared to levels one year ago (88 percent in May 2018).
At the national level, housing affordability is down slightly from last month but up from a year ago. Mortgage rates were down from last month at 4.30 percent this April, and down 7.7 percent compared to 4.66 percent a year ago.
Home prices are rising at a modest pace, at 3.6 percent nationally as of April 2019. However, the pace of price appreciation varies significantly across metro areas, with highly expensive metros ($700,000 or over) showing price declines and less expensive metro areas, usually with the median list price at $400,000 or below, are showing strong price gains.
Accounting for nearly 17 percent of the GDP, real estate is clearly a major driver of the U.S. economy.
Wages are broadly rising faster than inflation in all industries, except for manufacturing and transportation and warehousing.
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