MARKET DATA
THE PROPERTY LINE: 4 MARKET HEADWINDS FACING FIRST-TIME BUYERS
The COVID-19 pandemic has touched all phases of the homebuying journey. Today's first-time home buyers find themselves flailing in cross-currents:
Fearing health risks, homeowners have delayed putting their homes up for sale, limiting supply.
All-time low mortgage rates have encouraged even more buyers to leap into a fiercely competitive market.
Meanwhile, tighter mortgage standards make it a bit harder for even well-prepared buyers to get loans.
Average home prices rise higher, faster -- beyond the affordable range for first-timers.
These public health and market forces are amplifying affordability issues for first-time home buyers, threatening to delay their dreams of homeownership. To find success, prospective buyers must be persistent, patient and preapproved.
THE PROPERTY LINE: MORTGAGE TRENDS FOR THE REST OF 2020
In December 2019, I described 10 housing and mortgage trends to watch for in 2020. But "deadly pandemic" was missing from my bingo card. Some of the trends I predicted are irrelevant now because COVID-19 disrupted the economy.
Time for a midyear update. In a world altered by the pandemic, here are trends that mortgage borrowers, and home buyers and sellers, will confront in the second half of 2020.
