Despite rising mortgage rates, housing prices have continued to climb, with the median home price reaching $435,000, the highest ever recorded. The main driver is the low inventory, as many homeowners are unwilling to sell. This trend is expected to continue, making it increasingly difficult for first-time and move-up buyers to afford homes, especially with current mortgage rates around 7%.

Transcript:

Let’s spend a minute and talk about housing.

Housing prices weren’t supposed to keep going up because the mortgage rates were going up.

Housing last month hit the highest level, home prices, ever. $435,000 was the median price for a home on the market, according to the Realtors Association.

The only reason that the prices are so high is that no one is willing to sell a house. The inventory, there’s no such thing as inventory at zero in housing, but it’s sort of moving in that direction.

I know this is hard to believe, but I think that we’re going to see real estate prices continue to go up for at least several months.

Oh, I think so. And as you know, I think I told you, we’re moving up from where I live now outside in New Orleans up to Tupelo, Mississippi.

Our house, which is very nice, we have a saltwater pool and we have palm trees in the back. It didn’t even make the MLS.

I mean, literally, my wife put it on a local mom’s website. I guess every real estate agent that was a mom saw the picture she put up. It didn’t even go to the MLS.

And the people that wanted it, they came in $12,000 above our asking price.

I can’t. I can’t imagine what it’s like if you’re a first-time home buyer or somebody who’s a second-time buyer who, you know, has gone from being a couple to having kids.

You can’t afford at 7% with home prices moving up at this rate. You really can’t afford a home unless you’re almost rich.

Well, and again, that move-up buyer is typically the second-time home buyer who very likely bought that first home within the last five or 10 years and didn’t have a 2.5, you know, fixed rate 30.

And now, you know, everything at seven, you can buy it down, but that’s going to cost you 4,000 or 5,000, which is better.

But yeah, it’s very difficult to make that move.

 

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