The existing sales at home in 2024 have been the slowest for decades, which has high mortgage interests

High interest rates kept us in a deep freezing for a large part of the last year in a deep freezing. It could take a while for the market to thaw a lot.

The Americans bought a little more than four million houses last year, the National Association of Realtors said on Friday. That was very few since 1995 and far below the annual pace of around five million, which was typical in front of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Sales rose a little at the end of the year and rose by 9.3 percent in December compared to the previous year. This increase probably reflected the slump in the mortgage interest in summer and early autumn.

But since then, mortgage lenses have recovered to around 7 percent, and most forecastics do not expect them to drop a lot in the coming months. This year, this makes a significant increase in sales to home sales, said Charlie Dougherty, economist at Wells Fargo.

“You saw how sales are a little reasonable, but it’s still sluggish,” he said. “I don’t think it is a really powerful or energetic recovery that will come.”

Real estate prices rose during pandemic when the Americans were looking for more space and interest rates for rocky floor. Real estate agents told frenetic bidding wars when buyers fought for available houses.

This madness suddenly stopped when the rapid increase in inflation caused the Federal Reserve to increase interest rates at the highest level for decades. The interest rates for a 30-year-old fixed mortgage rose from less than 3 percent by the end of 2021 to almost 8 percent two years later.

The combination of high prices and high interest rates made houses to buy for many who wanted to buy. And owners, many of whom had either bought their houses or had refinanced their mortgages, had little incentive to be sold. That kept the inventory low and the prices high.

There are indications that the real estate market is gradually normal, since life events – new jobs, new babies, marriages, divorces – force the owners to sell and adapt to the costs for higher loans. The stocks have anchored and surveys show that more owners are planning to sell.

However, if the mortgage interests do not fall, this normalization process should be slow, said Dougherty.

“I think it is likely to say with certainty that selling your own homes has found a floor,” he said. But he added: “If you look at the overall level, it is still very, very weak.”