ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
It's spring, which means for sale signs are popping up in front of homes around the country. But with so much uncertainty in the economy, will this spring's housing market be hot or not? NPR personal finance correspondent Laurel Wamsley is here to give us the forecast. Hey, Laurel.
LAUREL WAMSLEY, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Bottom line, is this a good time to buy a house?
WAMSLEY: Well, it's definitely not the cheapest time to buy a house. I mean, mortgage rates are about 6.6%, which is down a bit from where they were in January, but it's still pretty high. Meanwhile, median home prices are really high, having shot up 47% in the last five years. You know, in some parts of the country, the market has been sort of frozen. Last year was the slowest for existing home sales since 1995. But it's not that people don't want to buy. There's lots of demand. It's that there hasn't been much for sale. But now that looks like that's changing.
SHAPIRO: Does that mean there are more for sale signs popping up?
WAMSLEY: Yes. I mean, that always happens in the spring to a certain extent. But this year, there are more. February saw 17% more existing homes per sale than a year earlier, and that increase is good for homebuyers. For sellers, more competition could mean that they have to be more flexible on price. The last couple of years, there's been concern about the so-called lock in effect - that homeowners with low interest rates will just never move. But the uptick in listings suggests that as time goes on, people do end up moving. And return to office mandates are also spurring some folks to move closer to cities now that they've got to be in the office several days a week.
SHAPIRO: Right. Well, what are you hearing from prospective homebuyers?
WAMSLEY: That it can still be really hard to buy a house. You know, a couple of days ago, I chatted with Jeremy Mason (ph), who's 40 and he's never owned a home. Even though mortgage rates are pretty high, people like Jeremy are biting the bullet and trying to buy a home anyway. He and his wife have been searching for a year in Fairfield County, Connecticut, and they've already made three offers unsuccessfully.
JEREMY MASON: And it kind of sucks. A few weeks back, we put one in. We were $161,000 over the asking price, and we did not get it.
WAMSLEY: This week, he and his wife put in another offer. He said, if this one didn't work out, they might just stick with renting for now.
MASON: I am a little nervous about the new administration, all the various tariffs. What's going to happen? What's not going to happen?
WAMSLEY: I checked back in with Jeremy yesterday and they didn't get the house. There were 16 other offers.
SHAPIRO: Wow, 16. Well, how does that uncertainty that he mentioned affect the market?
WAMSLEY: Yeah, a lot of folks are worried about the economy. With all these new tariffs happening, it could raise the cost for a lot of things. And if you're worried about losing your job, you might not want to commit to a big mortgage right now. If you're looking to sell a home, you might worry about whether there are going to be buyers for it. Adding to the uncertainty is the costs of home ownership that used to be pretty steady, like home insurance or HOA fees, have skyrocketed in some places. That can make buying a home feel like more of a gamble than it used to.
SHAPIRO: And there are also some new rules that affect homebuying and selling, right? What's changed?
WAMSLEY: Yeah, that's right. A settlement with the National Association of Realtors went into effect last year. The first big change is that in the past, it was usually assumed that the seller would pay both their agent and the buyer's agent. But now that's no longer a given. The second change is that now buyers who want to work with a real estate agent must sign an agreement that sets the agent's compensation before they can go see any homes. So pretty much the only way to see a home without signing something these days is to go to an open house. Many real estate agents say the system really hasn't changed much, but it certainly adds more things to negotiate in what can already be a tricky process.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Laurel Wamsley. Thank you.
WAMSLEY: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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