The Bluebid Buzz is a regular summary of housing market news and data driving our decision-making at Bluebid Homes.
Here's the Buzz for the week of October 19, 2023…
Mortgage rates hit 8% on Wednesday for the first time since August 2000, according to Mortgage News Daily.
Is there relief horizon? Fox Business shares that the Mortgage Bankers Association believes the Fed is finished with interest rate hikes, and the group expects mortgage rates to begin trending down over the next two years.
Redfin says we are on pace to finish 2023 with 4.1 million existing home sales nationwide, the fewest since the subprime mortgage crisis.
Fueled in large part by higher home prices, CNBC reports net worth for the typical American household grew 37%, after inflation, from 2019 to 2022.
With many buyers hitting the brakes in response to rising mortgage rates, HousingWire observes unseasonal growth in housing inventory.
As promised, here are the key takeaways from our feedback survey:
53.1% of respondents expect to transact or are open to doing so in the next 12-months; 96.8% of respondents are open to transacting off-market, via Bluebid; 84.4% of respondents expect to work with a real estate agent or are open to doing so for their next transaction; Wish list items included a number of things we'll look to address as we continue to prove out our model: more inventory, comp sale data, information on schools, etc.
As many of you know, we're focused on refining our playbook in Massachusetts prior to geographic expansion (another popular request!), and we're making great progress to that end.
Our team has learned a tremendous amount from the plethora of successful sellers who listed with us first since launch. We've identified the key attributes of active sellers in our off-market community, and we'll be working hard to to explicitly distinguish between active and passive sellers in the weeks and months to come based on our findings.
Users who asked for lower priced featured homes should have noticed a more well-rounded list this week, and those asking for listing alerts will be glad to find the 'Create Alert' button currently available on our site.
Thanks again to everyone who participated in the survey, and please never hesitate to reach out with feedback or questions. We love hearing from you!
Have a great week.
Disclaimer: Views expressed here are my own and not the views of my coworkers or anyone else. I am not a financial advisor, investment advisor, or housing expert. I’m just a guy who cares deeply about saving the American Dream of homeownership.