In March, pending home sales dropped to their lowest level since the start of the pandemic, as elevated mortgage rates and low for-sale supply curtailed demand. The median U.S. home sale price fell 3.3% in March to $400,528, which was the largest year-over-year drop since 2012 and just the second annual decrease since 2012, Redfin reports.
Pandemic boomtowns such as Boise, Idaho, are correcting the fastest, while cooler regional markets like Fort Worth and Dallas, in Texas, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Buffalo, N.Y., are seeing pending sales fall at the slowest pace.
In Boise, ID, prices fell 15.4% from a year earlier, more than any other U.S. metro area Redfin analyzed. Next came Austin, TX (-13.7%), Sacramento, CA (-11.9%), San Jose, CA (-10.5%) and Oakland, CA (-9.7%). Boise also saw the largest drop in pending home sales, with a 78.8% year-over-year decline. Nationwide, pending sales fell 26.6% on a seasonally-adjusted basis to the lowest level since the onset of the pandemic (April 2020).
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