Realtor.com has released its 2022 housing market forecast, which sees strong sales continuing and mortgage rates rising.
It does expect prices to continue rising next year as well, albeit at a more moderate pace.
“The D.C. area is no exception to that projection. We are expecting price gains in the D.C. region of just 3.8% in 2022,” Danielle Hale at Realtor.com said.
Low mortgage rates have helped offset rising prices for buyers. Rates are expected to rise in 2022, but rates will continue to favor borrowers.
“We expect them to approach 3.6% by the end of 2022. That is higher than we’ve seen in the last couple of years, but if you take a step back and look at a broad historical context, rates are only slightly above the record lows we hit in early-2021,” Hale said.
While even modestly rising prices in 2022 will continue to price mostly first-time buyers out of the market, Realtor.com expects that to be less of a problem in some markets. For example, D.C., will be less effected largely because of higher-earning professionals that are in the market for a home.
“One of the hallmarks of markets that are expected to do best in 2022 is that they have a substantial share of STEM jobs. And D.C. is no exception to that. It has almost double the average share of jobs in these knowledge-based fields,” Hale said.
Realtor.com expects 2022 to remain very competitive for home buyers with sales hitting 16-year high, rising 6.6%. The lack of homes for sale will begin to ease, but not much. It expects the 2022 for-sale home supply to increase just 0.3%, but says millennial demand will keep supply limited through at least 2025.
Realtor.com’s full 2022 housing market forecast is online.
