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Comment by jjcon | Hacker News Reader

3 cherry picked cities in the USA? Here is a better source that is national (USA):

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ACTLISCOUUS

Listings are still very low compared to pre-pandemic levels not to mention by many metrics there was already a shortage before the pandemic stemming all the way back to the great recession. Some interesting reading:

https://usafacts.org/articles/population-growth-has-outpaced...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/10/26/housing-mark...

https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/sta...

https://www.fanniemae.com/research-and-insights/perspectives...

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We're really only a month into the new rates. People who locked in at the sub 6% interest rates were still closing in October. Either we see a dramatic drop in prices or inventory will surge.

Housing affordability has been demolished with these higher interest rates, so sales will drop off a cliff as we're already seeing with mortgage companies doing mass layoffs.

> so sales will drop off a cliff as we're already seeing with mortgage companies doing mass layoffs.

Certainly, but read these articles. the expert economists and firms. While that may be true it is also true that far fewer people will sell their homes and very few homes will be built exacerbating an already 20 year problem of under building. The USA will have a low demand and low supply problem in the short term but the low supply problem is likely to persist for quite some time (just as it has for the past decade).

Likely people will take their houses off the market and rent them out. With mortgage rates going up and liquidity drying up, a lot of prospective buyers are deciding they're going to sit tight in a rental. That puts upward pressure on rents and gives an incentive for sellers whose desired price can't be met with the new rates to just sit tight and collect rental income.

Same thing happened when buyers disappeared in 2020 - most of the more marginal homes just got taken off the market, and either rented for a year or given a fresh coat of paint and some renovations to sell for a few hundred K higher in 2021.

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