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One
industry analyst says the U.S. is short by 5 million homes. That
is one reason many homeowners chose to stay put in 2023, leading
to a seller’s market.
According to Illinois Realtors, year-over-year home sales
continued to drop at the end of last year as available housing
inventory remained tight. In November, there were only 20,568
homes for sale in Illinois, a 22.2% decrease from November 2022.
Analyst Meredith Whitney is predicting that the supply of homes
for sale will go up in 2024, driving home prices down. The
reason: a wave of baby boomers will look to downsize and put
their homes on the market.
“Americans are sitting on a tremendous amount of equity in their
homes,” Whitney said. “It’s a question of when they tap into
it.”
Jamie Seale with Clever Real Estate agrees and expects prices to
slowly decrease this year.
“They have come down a little bit but with the housing shortage,
they have come down, but not a lot,” Seale said. “The median
home price right now is $431,000, which is a lot.”
That is compared to a median price of about $265,000 in
Illinois, but that is 9.5% higher than last year.
Added into the mix for home buyers is the fact that Illinois has
among the highest property taxes in the country.
“We are trying to help consumers and their communities grow by
advocating for the elimination of all types of burdensome
property taxes and the creation of incentives for the
construction of high-quality new houses that are affordable,”
said Matt Silver, president of Illinois Realtors.
Interest rates continue to drive the market. According to the
Federal Housing Finance Agency, 70% of all mortgages are less
than 4%, prompting many homeowners to stay where they are.
Based on the Freddie Mac data, the monthly average commitment
rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage was 7.46% in November
2023, down from the previous month of 7.62%.
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