When Will the Buyer's Market Return?

• August 28th 2018

by UrbanTurf Staff

For years, the housing market in the DC area and much of the rest of the country has favored home sellers, largely due to high demand and low inventory. Now, a new report tries to predict when the market pendulum will swing back in favor of buyers. 

The Zillow survey, while noting that trends and statistics point to negotiating power moving away from sellers, reveals that a true buyer's market is years away. 

"More than three quarters (76 percent) of experts said they don’t expect national housing market conditions to shift meaningfully toward a buyers market until 2020 or beyond," the report stated. 

The report goes on to say that while home prices are leveling off and inventory has started to rise in certain sub-markets, those moves back to a balanced market haven't had meaningful impact yet. 

"While inventory may be starting to creep back in some areas, it’s still falling nationwide – and when it does come back it will be from a very low level. And the crunch is particularly acute at the bottom end of the market – currently more than half of all homes for sale are in the top one-third of the market, leaving entry-level buyers to compete over a very limited pool of homes."

Thumbnail image of Logan Circle courtesy of Ted Eytan. 

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/when-will-the-buyer/14370.