Over the next few weeks and months, the long-overheated U.S. housing market is expected to continue to cool off in the bracing chill of autumn.
After a wild year of unprecedented price increases, a worsening shortage of homes for sale, and cutthroat bidding wars where offers six figures over the ask price weren’t uncommon, conditions are finally normalizing. More homes are expected to go up for sale this season just as many would-be buyers are either priced out or so fed up after losing out on home after home that they’re dropping out of the running.
“The fever in the housing market has broken,” says Ali Wolf, chief economist of building consultancy Zonda. “There have been buyers that have just been beat down for the last six months—and after losing so many homes and going through the emotional roller coaster, they’ve decided to stop searching for now. There are more homes on the market than there were six months ago.”
