Why You Can’t Compare Now to the ‘Unicorn’ Years of the Housing Market

You’ve likely heard unsettling housing market headlines, mostly due to unfair comparisons with the ‘unicorn’ years. Comparing housing market metrics from one year to another can be challenging even in a normal housing market – and the last few years have been anything but normal. In a way, they were ‘unicorn’ years. Here are three graphs to prove the comparison is not fair.

Why the Median Home Price is Meaningless in Today’s Market

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) will release its latest Existing Home Sales (EHS) report later this week. This monthly report provides information on the sales volume and price trend for previously owned homes. In the upcoming release, it’ll likely say home prices are down. This may feel a bit confusing, especially if you’ve been following along and seeing the blogs saying that home prices have bottomed out and turned a corner.

So, why will this likely say home prices are falling when so many other price reports say they’re going back up? It all depends on the methodology of each report. NAR reports on the median sales price, while some other sources use repeat sales prices. Here’s how those approaches differ.

This Real Estate Market is the Strongest of Our Lifetime

When you look at the numbers today, the one thing that stands out is the strength of this housing market. We can see this is one of the most foundationally strong housing markets of our lifetime – if not the strongest housing market of our lifetime. Here are two fundamentals that prove this point. 

OOPS! Home Prices Didn’t Crash After All

During the fourth quarter of last year, many housing experts predicted home prices were going to crash this year. Here are a few of those forecasts.

The Bad News: It Rattled Consumer Confidence

These forecasts put doubt in the minds of many consumers about the strength of the residential real estate market. Evidence of this can be seen in the December Consumer Confidence Survey from Fannie Mae. It showed a larger percentage of Americans believed home prices would fall over the next 12 months than in any other December in the history of the survey. That caused people to hesitate about their homebuying or selling plans as we entered the new year.

The Good News: Home Prices Never Crashed

Summer 2023 Buyer & Seller Guides are Here

Is what you’re hearing about the housing market leaving you with more questions than answers? That’s hard when you’re trying to decide if you’re ready to buy or sell a home. If you want to know what’s really happening right now download the new edition now.