After the period of strong expansion that marked the two-year period 2020-2021, characterized by tax breaks designed to strengthen the economy, in 2022 the US real estate market could undergo a tough slowdown in order to avoid the bubble.
The first signs came already in the last part of 2021 with the default of Evergrande, the Chinese real estate giant, but also in other economies, real estate prices are on an explosive growth path, which could lead to a correction or even a market collapse.
In this sense, the US case is exemplary. In April 2022, the median selling price of homes exceeded $ 391,000, marking a 60% increase compared to five years ago.
The real estate brokerage company Redfin tells that in the USA, in the last quarter of 2021, 18.4% of the houses sold were purchased for investment purposes, a sharp increase compared to the 12.6% just a year earlier.
In addition, the annual growth rates of house prices reached 20%, well over 14% recorded during the housing bubble of the early 2000s. House prices are very high even after inflation. Recently the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (the Dallas fed) admitted growing concern over the anomalous exuberance of real estate prices.
The rates applied to real estate mortgages have also seen an adjustment: on thirty-year loans the rate is around 5.5% (a value that has not been touched since August 2009), corresponding to an increase of 220 basis points compared to the beginning of the year.
The rise in mortgage rates has precipitated the possibility of buying a house for American families: according to the federal financial services agency Fannie Mae, in April 2022, the sentiment of consumer confidence in housing fell to the lowest level since May 2020, when the pandemic raged.