The message from the Federal Reserve is pretty clear: The central bank is done sitting on the sidelines as inflation eats away at Americans’ buying power. To be successful, of course, the bank will need to rein in one of the biggest drivers of runaway inflation: the red-hot U.S. housing market.
"We saw a clear shift in the housing market as rates rose to 5% at the end of March," Devyn Bachman, vice president of research at John Burns Real Estate Consulting, told Fortune. "We are hearing about qualification issues, rising cancellations, and increased buyer hesitancy, particularly at entry-level price points and in remote locations."
"Some of the new-home market's directional indicators are showing softening…fewer builders [are] raising prices from one month to the next, and sales expectations for the next six months [are] dipping," Bachman says.
