In today’s real estate market, low inventory and high demand are driving up home prices. As many as 54% of homes are getting offers over the listing price, based on the latest Realtors Confidence Index from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Shawn Telford, Chief Appraiser at CoreLogic, elaborates: “The frequency of buyers being willing to pay more than the market data supports is increasing.” While this is great news for today’s sellers, it can be tricky to navigate

For Buyers: There’s a lot of conflicting advice for buyers online these days, and there’s no shortage of headlines advising them to wait. Many authors cite the unpleasantness of multiple competing offers and rising prices as the reason to wait out the market. This is despite their acknowledgment that home values are not expected to stop rising in the near future and that interest rates are expected to eventually rise. It’s undeniably more pleasant to purchase a home when ther

Home price appreciation continues to accelerate. Today, prices are driven by the simple concept of supply and demand. Pricing of any item is determined by how many items are available compared to how many people want to buy that item. As a result, the strong year-over-year home price appreciation is simple to explain. The demand for housing is up while the supply of homes for sale hovers at historic lows. Let’s use three maps to show how this theory continues to affect the re