When will mortgage rates come down? Realtor.com says buyers will 'start to see some relief' in the new year.

By Aarthi Swaminathan

Home prices will drop next year, but so will inventory, the real-estate site says in its 2024 housing forecast

The 30-year mortgage rate will fall below 7% by April 2024, Realtor.com says in its housing forecast for next year.

The average mortgage rate in 2024 is expected to be 6.8%, and the 30-year may fall to as low as 6.5% by the end of the year, according to Realtor.com's report.

"We're gonna to start to see some relief for buyers who have been priced out," Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com, told MarketWatch.

"It's still expensive to buy a house, but instead of getting more expensive, we've turned the corner," she added. "We're starting to see housing get less expensive."

Realtor.com sees mortgage rates falling to 6.5% by the end of 2024

A weakening U.S. economy will be the key driver pushing down mortgage rates in 2024, Hale said.

"We expect unemployment to begin to gradually tick up - but we don't expect to see a huge surge - and the labor market to begin to soften," she said.

But "more importantly," Hale added, "we expect inflation to improve."

The economy has begun showing indications of cooling off. In October, inflation was flat, thanks to cheaper gasoline prices. The job market is also showing some signs of weakness, and the unemployment rate edged up that month to a 21-month high of 3.9%.

Mortgage rates have already begun to fall, Hale noted. They are no longer hovering at the 8% range, thanks to weaker economic data. The 30-year mortgage was averaging 7.29% as of Nov. 22, according to Freddie Mac.

But don't expect to see rates fall much lower. Even though Realtor.com noted that the historical average for the 30-year mortgage rate between 2013 and 2019 was 4%, home buyers should consider those days long gone.

That period "was not quite a normal housing market," Hale said. "It seems unlikely that we'll see mortgage rates get back to that range in the foreseeable future." Between 2013 and 2019, inflation stayed below 2.5%, according to data from the St. Louis Fed.

"The Fed was constantly worried about inflation that was too low" back then, Hale said.

Below are Realtor.com's predictions for the housing markets that will see the most and least home price appreciation in 2024.

Home prices to fall 1.7% in 2024

Realtor.com also expects home prices to fall 1.7% over 2024. Sale prices took a dip over the spring and summer this year, but they may stay flat or rise over the rest of 2023, Hale said.

But starting in May 2024, home prices overall may drop. That's partly because home sellers may cut prices, but it could also be due to a further pullback in homeowners listing their homes. Realtor.com expects existing-home inventory to fall sharply by 14% over 2024, which is steeper than the 5.7% drop in 2023.

That means that the typical monthly cost for a median-priced home could drop to $2,200 in 2024, which would be down from $2,240 in 2023.

The Realtor.com report also suggested strong home price growth in the Midwest and the Northeast. The company expects home prices to grow on an annual basis in 2024 by 10.9% in the Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, Mich., metro area, 10.4% in Rochester, N.Y., and 9.9% in the Des Moines-West Des Moines, Iowa, metro area.

On the other hand, the data indicates a sharp slowdown in home price growth out west. Home prices are expected to fall the most in 2024 in Austin-Round Rock, Texas, by 12.2%, as compared to 2023. Other metros at the bottom of the home price growth list include St. Louis, Mo.-Ill., and Spokane-Spokane Valley, Wash., where prices are expected to fall by 11.7% and 10.2% respectively.

Demand is also expected to be lower, because rates will continue to stay relatively elevated, Hale said.

But lower rates could also convince homeowners who bought with a 3% rate to consider selling, easing the so-called lock-in effect, which could increase inventory.

Realtor.com is operated by News Corp subsidiary Move Inc., and MarketWatch publisher Dow Jones is also a of News Corp unit.

-Aarthi Swaminathan

This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

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12-02-23 1042ET

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