Cutting down on the competition
Thinking of buying a house soon? You might not have much competition. According to a new poll, only a small fraction of adults are planning to buy a home in the next 12 months.
Who plans to buy a home?
According to a recent poll from the National Association of Home Builders, only 12 percent of U.S. adults plan to buy a house in the next year. That’s down from 14 percent last year and the third-straight year the share has declined.
As Rose Quint, NAHB’s assistant vice president for survey research, explains, “The drop marks the third consecutive year-over-year decline in the share of adults thinking about buying a home, providing further evidence of a slowdown in the housing market, as potential buyers are held back by the lowest levels of affordability in a decade.”
Of those who are planning to buy a home soon, just 41 percent have actually started looking.
“This finding suggests that the lower mortgage rate environment of 2019 has not had the expected effect of nudging more people to start looking for a home to buy,” Quint said.
With mortgage rates this low, is late-2019 a good time to buy a house?
This generation wants to buy a home most
The numbers are even more shocking once you drill down by generation. According to the poll, only a mere 3 percent of seniors are looking to buy a house in the next 12 months, while just 7 percent of Baby Boomers are.
The numbers are better for Generation X, of which 13 percent plan to buy in the next year, and for Millennials. Nearly one in five Millennials has their sights set on buying a home within the next year.
Millennials are stressed about homeownership; here’s how to ease those worries
Americans located in the West and South are also more likely to buy in the near-term. The poll shows that 12 percent of residents in these areas are planning to buying in the next 12 months. Just 10 percent in the Northeast are.
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