US home sales are surging. When will the music stop?
Watchers say answer hinges on rising mortgage rates, tight inventory
April 26, 2021 | The Business Times
As housing omens go, beware the trending Google search.
In the first week of April, US search interest in the phrase “when is the housing market going to crash” jumped 2,450 per cent compared with the previous month, and the phrase is now more popular than at any time since 2004, said Google. The search terms “should I buy a house” and “sell my house” also reached record interest.
Market watchers are right to be wary. The median sale price of an existing home in the US was US$313,000 in February, up nearly 16 per cent from a year earlier, when a 3-5 per cent annual increase is considered healthy, said a report from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), a trade group.
